


Playing House

by A_Diamond



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Police, Dubcon Spanking, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fake Domestic Bliss, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Leather Culture, M/M, Organized Crime, Spanking, Top Castiel/Bottom Dean Winchester, Undercover as a Couple, Very Loose Wire AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 04:50:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18843991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Diamond/pseuds/A_Diamond
Summary: 2002, Chicago.When Detective Dean Winchester arrests the wrong scumbag and gets on the wrong side of a vengeful deputy commissioner, he gets hit with what should be a career-ending blow: a forced transfer to the universally maligned wiretap room. It’s the joke of the Chicago PD, the basement where fuck-ups go to wait out death or retirement. He’s determined to make his work still count, but first he has to earn the trust of the jaded and paranoid guys already down there.His chance to accomplish both comes sooner and weirder than expected, when he and Novak, the worst of them, get paired for an impromptu, unsanctioned undercover operation in a leather bar. That quickly escalates into an impromptu, unsanctioned undercover operation in the very heart of the mob where they have to fish for incriminating evidence, play nice with the scion of the crime family, and pretend to be a deeply devoted, deeply kinky couple.The problems? They barely have any contact with their bare-bones team, the mobster Novak has to work for is a volatile murderer with his eye on Dean, and the kink isn’t entirely pretend.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaah where do I even begin. This fic owes so much to so many people.
> 
> Jojo and muse - Thank you for Tropefest. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. The first year it ran, the first chat you had for it, was the first time I really started participating in the fandom as a person rather than just an author and reader. I met some of my dearest friends through your challenges and I’m so grateful for that.
> 
> Those friends, who know who they are, with particular shout-outs to Lauren for always being ready to beta my fics at my disastrous last minutes and Ri for kicking me in the ass every time I need it.
> 
> Subtextiel has made the most amazing art, which you can find [here](https://feathergrave.tumblr.com/post/184910512660/playing-house-aaaaah-okay-so-this-is-my-art-for) and embedded in the fic. I seriously died the first time I saw it because it was so perfect to what I had pictured.
> 
> \---
> 
> A note on accuracy: You won't find it here. I have taken vast liberties with just about everything, perhaps the most egregious of which is that wiretapping was illegal in the state of Illinois during the time period contained in this fic. Don't care, have fun!
> 
>  **Dubcon warning:** Tagged dubcon spanking takes place between Dean and Cas, with the coercion for it to happen from a third party.

Silence was a rarity in the sea of desks that housed the Chicago Police Department’s Violent Crimes Division. An impossibility, almost, with how many people were always working, even in the off hours. There were always phones ringing, people shouting across the room at each other, radios turned up in case something juicy came through and they didn’t want to wait for Patrol to call them out for it. Guys bullshitting each other about feuding sports teams or open cases or what they did with whom on their nights off.

Detective Dean Winchester had only been up on the third floor for a year, but it had been a year of non-stop noise. The floor hadn’t been silent since the day he arrived, but he could’ve heard a nun fart the day he left. After all the yelling was done, anyway.

It had started with Deputy Commissioner Adler yelling at Moncrieff—about Dean, with Dean in the room, but he wasn’t the kind of brass who addressed underlings directly. Then he’d stormed out and Moncrieff had gone a round yelling right at Dean, mostly skipping over Adler’s blowhard complaints. He didn’t care what Dean had done to piss Adler off, he just cared that it was coming down on his head. Dean spent a while yelling back, because he knew when he was fucked but it didn’t have to mean he would go quietly.

Then he slammed out of Moncrieff’s office, prided himself on the crash of something falling off the wall and shattering, and picked up the box from his desk that had his dozens of notebooks and a handful of personal belongings. Amid the resounding silence of his former peers, he carried it down the pathway formed between all their desks and chairs and averted faces and into the elevator. Moncrieff held it open for him, no doubt out of the goodness of his heart.

He kept his hand blocking the door once Dean was inside, leaning in with a mean sneer. “Well Winchester, I’d tell you to just quit now and save yourself, but you’ve already proved you’re too stupid for your own good. So I just got one last favor left to ask of you. When you finally reach that inevitable day when you just can’t take it no more, jump off the south side of the building. I don’t need to see them scraping you off the sidewalk, you’ve already ruined enough of my lunches. Got it?”

Moncrieff slapped the button for the basement and pulled back out of the elevator without waiting for Dean to acknowledge his last jab. Either he wanted to make sure he got the last word in or he was scared that Dean was going to give him the ass-kicking he deserved. Whichever it was, it just proved what Dean already knew: he was a certified moron who’d lucked or bought his way into the job. If Dean had restrained himself from beating the shit out of Adler, Moncrieff was nothing. A spineless piece of shit nothing, but not one Dean was willing to throw away what was left of his career on.

He wasn’t dead and he wasn’t fired, though his sudden reassignment was as close as Adler could get without running afoul of the union. As long as Dean had his badge, he’d use it to be as big of a pain in Adler’s ass as he could. All he had to do was real police work. Fucking up Adler was just a handy bonus.

Though he didn’t regret making the choice he had, and had known when he did it that it would end the way it had or worse, he was glad no one else got on the elevator with him. Bitching Moncrieff out had done more to fuel his anger than satisfy it, a futile waste of energy on a man who didn’t care one way or another if anyone was corrupt as long as it didn’t get in the way of his easy paycheck. Dean needed the quiet to try and regain his cool.

For all his resolve to keep doing his job and doing it well, the whole point of Adler kicking him downstairs was that he didn’t think Dean could do it from there. And the shittiest part was that he might’ve been right. As far as Dean knew, despite Moncrieff‘s dramatic parting shot, no suicides had come out of the wiretap room since its creation. Neither had any arrests. But as far as he knew didn’t go too far, because he’d never bothered to learn anything about that unit.

No one did.

Maybe back in the day when it was exciting new technology, whenever the hell that had been, but not once in his time on the job had Dean met a cop or prosecutor who was enthusiastic about wires. They were too much of a pain in the ass to get approved—impossible in some places—and used up a lot of man-hours for no guaranteed result. When he’d first transferred and found out about it, he’d attributed the fact that Chicago even still had a dedicated team for it to nostalgia over taking down Capone.

Even before his forcible attachment to it, he’d learned better. The wiretap unit existed solely as a punitive measure. It was where they collected the fuck-ups they couldn’t or for some reason didn’t want to fire. The big question was, were the guys there now fuck-ups because they were shitty cops? Or were they Dean’s kind of fuck-up?

He was about to find out: The elevator shuddered and groaned to a stop. A second later, it dropped another jolting half inch, just enough for him to forget he was already on the lowest floor and start worrying about freefall. Then it clunked into place and the doors screeched open like they’d been rusted over for a dozen generations. It definitely hadn’t made that noise before in all the months he’d been riding the exact same elevator up to his desk, hadn’t made it just a few minutes ago when it arrived at the third floor to carry him to his exile.

Not trusting that it wouldn’t find a way to malfunction and gruesomely murder him just to make his day better, Dean exited the elevator in more of a hurry than he otherwise would’ve been in to show up to his new assignment. He was barely off it when the doors started closing, screaming as they did; it was even louder than the first time, coming not from the elevator itself but from the set of doors on the outside. No wonder he’d never heard it before—but that meant he was going to have to hear it every day now. Maybe he’d put in the extra five minutes it took to cross over to the stairs, assuming they could even get him to the right place. The building had so many weirdly designed hallways and inexplicably bolted doors that he was pretty sure a whole section of the fourth floor had been lost to the maze.

The hallway stretched to either side of the elevator, beige-gray walls all the more depressing for the dreary yellow lights doing a half-assed job of illuminating them. It was all such a fucking cliche that he wouldn’t have been surprised to find a B-list movie crew shooting some edgy corrupt cop drama. Hilariously, actual corruption was the reason they’d never be allowed to bring cameras in.

Was that irony?

Directly across from Dean was a door, painted the same off-putting color as the walls and unlabeled. No signs pointed him in the right direction, and of course Moncrieff hadn’t bothered to tell him where to go any more than he’d bothered to learn the layout at any point before it became suddenly relevant. He looked both directions and only saw one other nondescript door to the left and corners that took the rest of both paths out of sight.

If he was going to have to go in blindly, he figured he could at least start with the easiest option and hope that didn’t mean walking into an unmarked women’s restroom or something; not that it was likely to see any use down there. Easily juggling his box in one arm, he tried the handle of the closest door and found it locked. So was the door to the left.

The frustration that he’d only tamped down during his trip in the elevator threatened to surge up again. Bullshit exile assignment or not, he just wanted to find his new fucking desk and get on with whatever police work he was able to do from it. Fantasies of tossing a cuffed and maybe just a little roughed-up Adler into a cell filled with his crooked pals powered him down the hall and around the corner to discover the first useful signs, but all they indicated was that here’d chosen the wrong direction. Unless the wire unit was based out of the toilets, which he was starting to think wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. But he sure as hell wasn’t going to try it unless he ran out of other options; maybe not even then.

The other fork of the hallway looked more promising once he rounded the turn, though not any less bleak in appearance. The first door, just around the corner, announced the location of the stairs. The second was marked ‘Evidence,’ which threw him since the evidence desk and all the storage he’d ever seen was on the second floor. If they had other spaces for it, he felt like he would’ve known and been to them by that point.

The section of hall extended a little further than the one leading to the bathrooms and had two more doors several yards away that again weren’t labeled. One was locked and the other led to small parking garage he hadn’t even known existed; given the rusty beaters of decades-old Crown Vics that occupied it, it didn’t see much active use. It also didn’t have the wire tap unit hiding in it.

Standing at the end of the hallway, Dean frowned back down the way he had come. There was a door he hadn’t tried, aside from the bathrooms. It made no sense, but that was par for the course, so he trudged over and yanked the handle for the evidence door. Sure enough, it opened.

Into an empty room.

Holes in the floor and slightly-differently-colored gray spots in the paint suggested where a large desk or counter had been, and half the hinges remained of a door no longer blocking the smaller hallway to the side of it. But the lights were on, and he heard something—not voices, but sounds of movement echoing from somewhere out of sight. Either there was a rodent problem, which he absolutely didn’t rule out, or he might’ve found whatever people existed in the most boring underground maze to ever have been invented. Even if they weren’t the ones he was looking for, he could try and get a straight fucking answer about where his glamorous new job was.

The hallway was short and had a chain-link gate at the far end, intact but propped open; the large rock holding the bottom of the gate in place proclaimed, in large red letters, that it was the “EMERGENCY ROCK.” And past that, he found what had to be his new home.

Though the space was larger than he’d expected for the least valued subset of the department—even parking enforcement got a better rap, and they weren’t even real police—he figured that was down to cheapness. Turning the abandoned evidence pen into usable space for anyone else would’ve meant cleaning it up, which was clearly not a priority since there were still sections of wire fencing at random intervals around the walls and chipped paint where other sections had been.

About six desks took up some of the space; about, because two of them could have been broken halves of a single desk, held up by cinder blocks, and another was a door—maybe even the one missing from the entrance—set across a pair of file cabinets. Most of them were pushed up against the walls, though two sat facing each other just shy of the far corner, and each of them had an assortment of stuff. Some paperwork, some equipment, some random shit he didn’t really think was there on purpose, but it all added up to no space for him.

There were only two other guys in the cage-like basement room, and neither of them so much as looked up at him when he walked in. The closest, a bear of a man whose shirt was unbuttoned halfway down his chest and rolled up past his elbows but still stained yellow-gray around the collar and underarms, kept on dealing out some kind of solitaire at the desk next to Dean. On the other side of the former evidence pen, a man in a proper suit jacket had a pair of headphones half on as he scribbled on a notepad.

“I’m looking for the wire room,” he said, adding just a hint of a question at the end. He addressed it to the room at large, but followed it up with eyeing the guy who wasn’t obviously listening to something else. The man with the cards glanced up at him, looked him over with a skeptical face, and turned his attention back to flipping cards out onto the desk.

It was the man with the headphones who answered, “And you found it. Good work, they oughta make you a detective.”

The card dealer snorted a laugh before Dean had a chance to respond to that. “Think he’s already a detective,” he drawled, lazy and Louisianian, without breaking from his game again. “Question is, what’s he doing here?”

Dean looked around the room, down at his box, back up at the men barely paying any attention to him. “Well. He works here now, apparently.”

That earned him a sharp look from both men, but the one with the headphones quickly got pulled back by something that made him start writing in a frenzy again. Louisiana looked back at Headphones, shrugged, and said, “Of course he does. Why the fuck not. Make yourself at home, I guess, and we’ll sort this shit out when the call’s done.”

Picking the desk that seemed the least cluttered, he even found a mostly clear corner of it where he could set his box down. But it was a precarious place to leave it, because it really was just a corner; the desk was more occupied than Dean had thought at first. He just had no idea what it was occupied by.

“What,” he said, “the fuck is all this?”

No one answered. They didn’t even acknowledge the question. But Headphones warned, “I wouldn’t,” when Dean reached out to clear off the detritus and make a place to sit.

Dean cut another glance at him, but his back was still turned. “What?”

“He just laid those out,” the man said without moving or stopping the scratch of his pen. “He gets tetchy when people touch the fancy stuff, and apparently that’s teak.”

Eyebrows raised, Dean looked a question at Louisiana, but he just shook his head and flipped another card from the deck. Not the ‘he’ in question. Dean blinked down at the desk again.

“Teak toothpicks?”

Both men busted up laughing half a second before a voice behind Dean grumbled, “They’re spindles.”

He jumped, setting off fresh bouts of laughter, and turned to see a third man who’d made it within a foot of him without Dean hearing or feeling his approach. He had dark hair that looked like it had just rolled out of bed and didn’t so much as blink his piercingly blue eyes at Dean’s reaction.

“Shit,” Dean said with his first regained breath. “You got ghosts down here, too?”

“Only our careers,” Headphones said on a distracted, wistful sigh.

Louisiana snorted. “Hey now, we ain’t all two weeks away from a heart attack, old man. I’m gettin’ out of purgatory any day.”

Dean chewed his lip, stared between the three, and found he had no idea where to start. “Spindles? Purgatory? The desk?”

“I’ll clear it off,” the ghost said. “They didn’t tell us you were transferring in.”

As Ghost skirted around Dean to start collecting the tiny pieces of wood, Louisiana finally put down his deck and gave Dean another assessing once-over. “So who’d you piss off?”

No point trying to deny that; getting tossed down into the windowless cage of the wiretap room didn’t happen as a reward and everyone there knew it. “Adler. Seems I missed the memo on which serial rapists bought immunity with their donations to his wife’s campaign.”

Louisiana winced sympathetically. “He get the charges dropped?”

“Couldn’t.” Dean grinned, a lopsided smirk of triumph at the memory of Adler’s purple face. “I made the arrest as he was coming out of what I later learned”—he’d known all along, of course he had—“was one of her fundraising dinners. Couple upstanding journalists who were there to cover the event happened to overhear the charges, so the story blew up before he could kill it.”

He had their attention; Headphones had taken off his headphones and Ghost paused with only half his precious sticks cradled in his upturned palm. Louisiana was the one to break the silence again.

“Damn, brother. You’ve got balls of steel and they’re gonna be down to your knees before you ever get outta here. You’ll probably even break Ol’ Man Turner’s record, and I’m pretty sure they stuck him down here before phones were even invented.” He stood and wandered to the far side of the desk to offer Dean his hand. “Benny Lafitte. Formerly of Homicide, for my sins.”

Dean took it, relieved at the welcoming firmness of Lafitte’s handshake. “Dean Winchester. Violent Crimes up until, uh.” He checked his watch and tried to gauge how long the shouting had taken. “Forty-five minutes ago, give or take.”

“Well, you’re fucked,” declared Headphones, AKA Old Man Turner. “I’ve been here for all the other sorry sons of bitches who’ve come and gone, and even the ones who came in voluntarily took at least a week to get transferred.”

“Who the fuck would come down here voluntarily?” asked Dean with a disbelieving laugh.

Lafitte and Turner looked pointedly at Ghost, who shrugged and resumed collecting his fancy toothpicks. “I want to bring down the Outfit and I think this is how we’ll get them. It’s exactly where I want to be.”

By the time he finished, Dean’s eyebrows were halfway to his hair; there had to be a story there. Digging into it right then probably wasn’t the best way to introduce himself to the guys he was likely to be with for years to come, though. Since they all seemed to expect something from him, he instead asked, “So, spindles?”

Closing his hand around the sticks, Ghost scrutinized Dean—for what, he had no idea. Then he nodded, like he’d found whatever it was, and said, “Spindles.”

That still meant absolutely fuck-all to Dean, even when Ghost added, like it clarified anything, “For chairs.” But he carried them over to one of the cluttered desks at the far side of the room, and as Dean’s gaze followed him he saw that it too was covered in small bits and pieces. Unlike the litter from Dean’s desk, most of them had form:

A four-poster bed frame made from a light wood with a top panel supported by surprisingly phallic columns, a desk to match, a rounded dining table the same color as the so-called spindles; and none of them larger than Dean’s palm. There were also a few unconnected parts, curves and squares, and it was beside those that the recovered pieces ended up.

Before he really knew he was doing it, Dean’s legs had gone the way of his eyes and he trailed the man over to the desk to look at the tiny furniture more closely.

“What the fuck,” he said again, “is all this?”

Hands free of their precious cargo, the man turned and extended one to Dean. “Castiel Novak.”

Since he’d already introduced himself and not answering questions seemed to be a thing with the guy, when Dean shook his hand, he didn’t bother to repeat it.

“Okay, that’s what the fuck all this is,” he said, waving his other hand at Novak. “But I was talking about the dollhouse that exploded over your desk.”

Novak stared at him long enough that Dean started to get nervous again. Maybe he’d blown that chance at decent first impression after all. But Lafitte and Turner cracked up again, Lafitte clapping him on the back.

“Yeah,” Lafitte said, “I think you’re gonna do just fine here.”


	2. Chapter 2

The wiretap room was, technically speaking, part of the Organized Crime Division. On paper, the chain of command was clear; the technicality came from the fact that they wanted about as much to do with the lepers in the basement as the rest of the Chicago Police Department. Two weeks in and Dean had no idea who his new lieutenant was or how much supervision they got—though that fact was kind of an answer in itself. 

Dean hadn’t been told who was in charge of him now and he didn’t bother to ask or go looking. Best case scenario, it was someone decent who would leave him alone to do his job. Worst case, it was some jackass like Moncrieff who would only come storming in if he had something to bitch about. Either way, Dean wasn’t dumb enough to invite trouble on himself when it was shit like that. Shit that didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. If his boss hadn’t felt the need to come introduce himself or threaten Dean not to fuck up or whatever his deal turned out to be, Dean would happily keep ignoring his existence, too.

It wasn’t like he didn’t have enough to deal with just from his new colleagues.

They were decent enough, as far as things went. Lafitte was even downright friendly. But not one of them trusted Dean to actually know what the hell he was doing, and that pissed him off almost as much as Adler sending him down in the first place. He was a good cop. He wasn’t green, he wasn’t dumb, he wasn’t crooked; just because he hadn’t spent the last however many years listening to every sex line call made by the head of the particular branch the guys were listening in on, that didn’t make him completely clueless. But the wire unit, especially Novak, insisted on treating him like he was.

It wasn’t like he actually believed that listening in on the Outfit’s phone calls was real police work. No one did, with the notable exception of Novak. And he definitely didn’t think it would bring about any real results: the mob had people in the courts, on the force, with the phone company. They had to know they were bugged, so why would they ever say anything incriminating on tape?

But at least it would’ve been something to do. He’d spent the past two weeks sitting on his ass—at least they’d let him keep the desk he chose—or pacing the airless dungeon he had to call home. It was almost enough to make him lose his goddamn mind with the boredom. The only thing even approaching excitement was when he had to occasionally put up with a lecture or test from Novak about the intricacies of the Styne hierarchy, but even that made him feel restless and useless. Meanwhile, Turner didn’t seem to care one way or another if Dean learned shit but was equally unwilling to let Dean anywhere near the equipment. Even Lafitte, once when the two of them were alone and a call came in, offered him a sympathetic smile but still picked up the headphones without giving Dean a chance to listen in.

“Novak ain’t right as often as he thinks he is,” he told Dean after determining the call was nothing and dropping off it, “but he’s also not wrong all that much, either. And anyway, he is way too ornery for me to fight him over your honor. You can do that yourself or you can play it his way, but I’m not about to be getting in the middle of it.”

So Dean rolled his eyes and clenched his jaw and waited for Novak to come back from lunch.

Turner was out for the day and Lafitte, seeing the way things were headed, took off for his own break as soon as Novak walked in. So it was just Dean, Novak, and whatever miniature piece of furniture Novak was sanding down when Dean stood right next to Novak’s chair, scowled down at him, and asked, “When are you gonna let me do my job?”

Novak didn’t look up from his arts and crafts project. “I don’t trust you.”

The ugly snort that pushed its way through Dean’s nose echoed around them. “Yeah,” he said dryly, “I got that. But I’ll pick up on all this shit a lot quicker if you let me actually get involved, and it’s not like I can fuck anything up if you just let me listen in with you. I can be helpful. I’m a good fucking cop, even if I don’t know who Senior’s screwing this week.”

“No.” Novak turned, his hands falling still in his lap, his eyes viciously bright and piercing. “I don’t think you understand. I didn’t say that I doubt your knowledge or abilities, though it’s true that I do. If your detective work lived up to your confidence in it, you wouldn’t need this explained to you. But the problem is you: I don’t trust you.”

“What the hell are you—”

“Do you know how many cops they have? Because we don’t, but we know it’s a lot. And we know they’re all over.”

Dean saw red. He clenched his fists and had to stop himself from doing anything with them, clenched his jaw then had to make himself open it again to snarl, “I’m not fucking dirty.”

“Yes.” Novak rolled his eyes. “We should take your word for that.” 

Pointedly signalling an end to the conversation, he turned away to face his desk, giving Dean just the side of his head to glare at as he put down the first piece of sandpaper and picked up another square. He stroked it over the flat piece of wood, long, smooth movements with a slow rasping noise; Dean wanted to snap it in half.

It wasn’t like he didn’t get it; he knew there were fuckers all over the department with their hands in the cookie jar. But that didn’t give Novak the right to accuse Dean of it, especially not to be such a colossal dick about it. Dean wasn’t an idiot for not figuring out what had been going on when there hadn’t been any reason to think that was what it was. No one had done anything to suggest it, including Novak himself, and Dean hadn’t assumed it was a standard suspicion for any newcomers.

Besides, that was a bullshit way to run a team. It wasn’t just his time they were wasting, though of course that was what pissed him off the most. Getting stuck on the wires was bad enough; getting kept off the wires while he satisfied Novak’s exacting demands was bad enough. Getting benched until he could prove he wasn’t just a deep-cover stooge wasn’t gonna be how he spent the next three years. That was exactly what Adler was looking to do to him and exactly what he’d sworn he wouldn’t let happen.

He’d gone around Adler; he’d figure out a way around Novak, too. It couldn’t end any worse for him than the last time: There was no demotion from the basement, and Novak didn’t have the power to fuck him like that anyway. Murder him, maybe—Dean didn’t know that Novak wasn’t a mob stooge, either, after all—but not reassign him. So he’d just have to feel out the rest of the team and see what his options were.

Back at his own desk, he dug around in a drawer until he found a pocket-sized notepad. A quick flip through showed that his notes only filed a few pages, and not with anything important—a lead from a two-year-old case that hadn’t turned out to be anything useful anyway. He tore those out, tossed them in the general direction of the small trash bin next to him, and started scratching out half-formed notes to himself. What he knew about the Stynes, what he knew about his teammates, what else he could find out about both to help him actually get started on something useful.

When he flipped the first newly filled page out of the way and kept going on the next sheet, he noticed that the sound of Novak’s sanding had stopped. That realization was followed by a prickle down his spine, the feeling of being watched, but when he darted his eyes that direction, Novak was just as focused on his toy furniture as he had been. But it happened again a minute later, and even though he didn’t find Novak looking at him that time, either, he knew he hadn’t imagined it; Novak was keeping an eye on him without wanting to get caught at it.

Smug, Dean went back to his work and didn’t check in on Novak again. If he was bothered by Dean’s sudden and unexplained activity, then he was getting exactly what he deserved. A taste of his own medicine. It was his own fault, since he’d have no reason to be nervous if not for his stupid suspicions about Dean being dirty.

Fifteen minutes and three pages later, Lafitte came back and sighed like he could see the tension stretched taut between Dean and Novak.

“Find a hobby,” he advised Dean, setting a paper cup half full of coffee on one corner of his desk and picking up the deck of cards from another. He waved the deck meaningfully and started dealing out another round of whatever the game of the day was. “You’re gonna need one even after you get in on the creep business, ain’t much excitement in it.”

Dean huffed out a grumpy breath as Novak sanded down the sides of his piece of wood and acted like he wasn’t listening in. Fine, Dean could pretend to ignore him, too, and shoot the shit with Lafitte for a while. 

“I dunno, man, does playing with yourself all day count as a hobby?”

Lafitte smirked, understanding the crude joke immediately and lifting the cards he still held in an ironic salute. Much as Dean appreciated the show of solidarity, the real payoff came from seeing Novak jerk in surprise. Viciously, Dean hoped it messed up all his careful work and he’d have to start all over again to fix whatever scratches he left in the wood. If he had done any damage, Novak didn’t show any frustration over it; he did set the piece down, though, and stared at Dean.

Without looking over and giving himself away, Dean couldn’t tell what Novak’s expression was, but he’d seen the man frown enough in the past few weeks to picture it, and that was almost as satisfying.

“What can I say,” Lafitte said with a grin, “I had plenty of time to get used to entertaining myself. Ain’t like there was much else vying for my attention. Turner, sure, he’s got good stories. Some real shit, and whatever he doesn’t remember he’ll pull out of his ass twice as exciting as the truth. But we’ve heard it all three dozen times and if you get him started with Novak around, well, that’s more than your ass or mine is worth. And he”—Lafitte jerked his chin at Novak without looking at him—“isn’t what any right person should call good company.”

It was all the excuse Dean needed to check on Novak, but he’d gone back to acting like he didn’t care about anything other than a sheet of light wood he was drawing on. When Dean returned his attention to Lafitte, the other man was also watching Novak, his expression unreadable. Then he shook his head and turned back to Dean with a short laugh.

“The money people are willing to pay for the shit he makes, though? I’ll tell you, I picked the wrong damn hobby.”

“Really?” Forgetting all about subtlety, Dean twisted in his chair to stare at Novak and his projects again. “You can buy doll stuff everywhere these days. I mean, shit, I think the 7-Eleven on my block sells some.”

Novak shot him a pissy glare at that, but still didn’t actually say anything.

Half choking on a chuckle, Lafitte said, “Not like this they don’t. My little girl won’t shut up about the table and chairs he gave her last Christmas. I’m pretty sure it was a setup to try and get me to pay in blood for more, since nothing else will do now.”

“Her birthday’s coming up,” Novak said. It was almost like he was talking to himself, except for how it was so obviously a response to their conversation. “I haven’t forgotten.”

Lafitte put his cards down, expression equal parts surprise and concern as he protested, “You know you don’t need to. I was just giving you a hard time.”

Possibly for the first time Dean had seen, Novak smiled. It took years off his perpetually grumpy face, replaced them with a softness Dean wouldn’t have been able to imagine even if he’d had a reason to try. “I know. But I want to. I’d be making the set anyway, and I’m very happy with it. This way I know it’ll be going to someone who will appreciate it, not one of those spoiled little shits who’ll break it half and then cry because daddy’s attempt to stick it back together with Elmer’s didn’t go so well.”

“Get that a lot, do you?” Dean asked drily, taken aback but also amused by the strength of Novak’s words.

Novak cut him a look, and though his face lost the fond smile, it didn’t regain all of its previous hardness, either. “Often enough. But I don’t do repairs unless there’s a very good reason.”

“Sure,” Lafitte agreed, “get ’em to pay for a new one instead.”

“It’s not about the money.” Novak studied them, studied Dean like he was deciding if he could say what he was thinking. Whether or not it was what he originally planned, what he said was, “I don’t sell as much as you seem to think I do. Not like I could eat from it. I make them because I enjoy the work, and I sell them when I run out of people I like to give them to. But I don’t like repeating myself and I have absolutely no patience for cleaning up after someone else’s tantrums.”

There was a moment of silence as they all considered this, Dean and Lafitte looking at Novak while Novak looked across to the desk in the far corner that held some completed pieces and some in further stages of being built. Then, maybe feeling just as uneasy at the weight of the conversation turning serious as Dean did, Lafitte asked, “So you like me?”

“I like Elizabeth,” Novak corrected without any hesitation whatsoever, not even to turn his head.

Lafitte just laughed, winked at Dean, and took up his deck of cards again.

The whole exchange gave Dean a lot to think about; Lafitte and Novak returning to their respective hobbies gave him the time and quiet he needed to muse over what it all meant. It didn’t drastically change anything he’d already noted about the team dynamics, but it was more insight than he’d had before. Novak especially. He’d pegged the guy as kind of a weirdo from the start, because a grown man obsessed with dollhouse furniture couldn’t be anything but a weirdo. His investment in the wiretaps everyone else wrote off added to that impression. But aside from that, he’d been hard to get a feel for on a personal level; everything he talked about was work.

Dean wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Novak was the kind of guy who lived the job. No family, no friends, no evening or weekend plans. He knew the type—hell, he almost was the type, except he had Sam and Sarah and Judy to harass him into going out sometimes. Once a year they even visited and he spent a week pretending to hate how they dragged him to all the tourist spots. Of course he loved it, and they knew, and every time they’d try to convince him to move out to New York. Refusing was hard, especially when they played dirty and made him say it right to Judy’s sad little five-year-old face.

Finding out Lafitte had a daughter somewhere around that age didn’t surprise him too much. Finding out that Novak had any kind of relationship with that daughter, though, even if it was just a slight fondness as the supplier of her favorite toys—that was unexpected. It also cemented how personally he was taking Novak’s attitude toward him.

Fortunately for Dean and unfortunately for Novak, he did some of his best work when it was personal.

It was three days later, while Dean was still in the surveillance stage of his plans, that the next break in his self-assigned case came in. It also happened to be a break in the real case, the unit’s investigation into the Styne family, so the fact that Dean got to hear about it at all was itself a step in the right direction.

“Motherfuckers think they’re smarter than us.” Turner was at his headphones again; for all he mocked Novak’s sincere faith in their work, he was always fastest to jump on the machine when a call came in. Spry old bastard, powered as far as Dean could tell entirely on spite. “They gotta know we’re listening and they still do shit like this.”

Novak looked up from the tiny table he was gluing together just long enough to ask, “Got something?”

“Senior’s put a hit on Junior’s mistress.”

“He just said that?” Dean knew it was a stupid question as soon as he let it out, but it wasn’t like he had a hell of a lot else to go on. It was really their fault for refusing to let him in on anything before. The face Turner made clearly placed the blame entirely on Dean anyway.

“Not in so many words, dipshit,” Turner said just to prove the point. “But they don’t know we know their codes. Guess the mistress is trying to blackmail them, so Senior is having her and… huh. Her wife?”

Lafitte slowly spun around, cards abandoned. “Come again?”

Turner flipped a switch on the machine and sound started coming out of a speaker for all of them to hear. Later on, Dean planned to get really fucking annoyed about the fact that they could have been doing that the entire time instead of playing keep-away with the headphones like a bunch of children. But for the time being, he focused in on the first bugged conversation he was allowed to listen in on.

“—think the wife also wants to, uh, buy a painting?”

“No,” answered the staticky voice that had to have been Senior, “she’s not much of an art lover, so she’s going to be out at a book club while you’re showing our friend around the gallery.” He flowed over the pretentious code more easily than his hitman had.

“Okay, sure. And where’s this, um, this gallery I’m meeting his lady friend at?”

“I’ve heard they have a nice show set up at a joint called the Eagle, so try selling one of the paintings there.”

With a final acknowledgement, the line disconnected. Turner and Lafitte stared at each other; Novak stared at the speaker. He’d gone still about the same time Dean had.

Turner asked, musing out loud, “So how’s Junior’s mistress got a wife?”

In the silence that followed, Dean chewed his lip. He looked at Novak again, wondering if he’d picked up on the same thing, but the man didn’t look like he was going to speak up anytime soon. He just kept frowning at the speaker like he could make it give them something more, doll furniture apparently forgotten in his hand.

So it was up to Dean to bite the bullet and prove he was useful. “’Cause Junior ain’t got a mistress,” he said. It came out pretty well. “Eagle’s a queer bar.”

Being on the receiving end of scrutiny from three seasoned detectives wasn’t a comfortable feeling; no wonder the weak ones confessed easy. But in the end, all that happened was that Turner said, “No shit?” and Novak gave him an assessing look.

Anything else that might’ve followed got cut short by an unfamiliar voice bellowing down the hallway, “You assholes wanna get out here or what?”


	3. Chapter 3

By six that evening, Dean was more involved in the Styne investigation than even he had been aiming for.

It didn’t feel like the victory it should’ve been.

He’d wanted to be doing something, and he was. He’d wanted to be doing something more active than sitting around in a basement listening to bugged phone calls, and he was. He’d wanted to be doing real police work, getting out there and making a difference on things that mattered, and—

He wasn’t sure if he was.

In Dean’s handful of years as a detective in Violent Crimes, nothing had ever called for undercover investigation; it just wasn’t the nature of his work. Getting thrown into it with only a few hours’ warning was almost more of a shock than getting shunted to the wire room had been. It was the rest of the circumstances around what he found himself doing that took it way past shock and into a place where he wondered—more than once—if he’d had too much to drink and knocked himself out and was hallucinating the whole thing.

The dreamlike feeling had started just after the fateful phone call, when he’d followed the rest of the guys out to the emptied-out former evidence room and found a man in an even cheaper suit than the ones Dean himself owned. He’d been berating Turner about something since they were halfway down the hall, but stopped when Dean came into view and demanded, “Who the fuck are you?”

That was how Dean had finally met Lieutenant Singer, his new boss who hadn’t even known Dean had been assigned to him. He was an old buddy of Turner’s who didn’t check in with the unit much partly because he trusted Turner to handle it, partly because he didn’t give much of a fuck, and partly because his wheelchair couldn’t actually get any closer to the room they worked out of. He barely waited for Dean to introduce himself before he moved on to chewing the others out for not telling him they had a newcomer.

“Jesus fucking Christ, I expected better from you at least, Novak. ’Course Lafitte don’t give a shit and Rufus goes out of his way to fuck me just for giggles, but you usually keep your head outta your ass more than that. What the fuck do I even keep you around for?”

“Didn’t seem relevant yet,” Novak said blandly; Dean bristled at the insult, but didn’t have a chance to respond. “And if you really gave a shit, you would move your desk down here instead of just threatening to shove it up my ass every time I wake you up from a nap upstairs.”

“Yeah, well, you’re a pain in my fucking ass, why shouldn’t I return the favor?”

For the shit they were saying, especially Singer, neither of them seemed particularly upset about it. Dean snuck a glance at Lafitte, who looked a little more amused than his usual good humor, and Turner, who wasn’t trying to hide his laughter, and figured that was just how they were. Seemed like a lieutenant he could get along with better than Moncrieff, at least.

Their back and forth hadn’t gone on any longer than that, though, before Novak turned it to what really mattered: They’d intercepted a conspiracy to commit murder and needed to do something about it. It wasn’t entirely clear in Dean’s memory how they’d gotten from that to the current plan, or when exactly he’d agreed to it, but he did know it was his fault for speaking up about The Eagle in the first place.

That spectacular idea was the reason Dean was standing back out in the old evidence room under the scrutiny of three highly uncomfortable, highly judging stares—still Turner and Lafitte, but Singer instead—trying not to think too hard about what he was wearing. The jeans were his, a dark pair that fit well and didn’t have any of the grease or paint stains most of his casual clothes did. The black leather chaps he had on over them weren’t his, though, and neither was the black leather vest hanging open across his bare chest. Tucked into his back pocket, on the right side, he had a gray bandana. That wasn’t his, either, because he wasn’t about to tell anyone that he owned one just like it.

He’d already had to explain what the hanky code was, and no amount of bullshitting covered the fact that they knew exactly why he knew, especially after revealing that the Eagle wasn’t just any queer bar. It was a leather bar, and they’d all seen Dean recognize its name. Like hell was he going to share any more specifics of what he might’ve been into that gave him that knowledge.

“Huh. So this’ll get you in there without raised eyebrows?” Singer asked after looking Dean over, his eyebrows raised.

Trying not to let his embarrassment show, Dean nodded decisively—even if it felt like more of a nervous jerk—and ground out, “Yup.”

Singer made another noise, somewhere between thoughtful and surprised, but didn’t say anything else.

“But there’s no fucking way I can wear a wire or a piece, so I still don’t see how this is gonna work.”

“The lack of recording is unfortunate but not a critical deficiency,” Novak said from the door behind him. “And you’re not making any arrests or revealing yourself at all, so you don’t need a gun.”

He turned to snap that he was feeling pretty fucking revealed, thanks very much, but just about swallowed his tongue in the effort when he actually saw the man. That was the final nail in the coffin of the worst operational plan Dean had ever been a part of, the moment he went from thinking it was a terrible plan to being absolutely sure he was going to die before the night was through.

Maybe even before he could say anything else, because whatever was going on in his lungs felt like it was going to kill him right there.

Novak looked…

Shit.

Novak looked like a wet dream in a sleek motorcycle jacket and a perfectly positioned Muir cap. Oiled leather pants wrapped his legs, his thighs—damn, he’d been hiding those under his loose trousers. They clung to his crotch, so obscene that the outline of his dick pressed out into the leather like a sculpture; Dean’s mouth dried and watered at the same time, an instinctive response that had nothing to do with Novak himself and everything to do with magazines Dean had been jerking off to since he was a teenager.

What really did it, though, were the black hankie folded into Novak’s left front pocket and the dark wooden paddle hanging beside it like it lived there.

Until then, Dean hadn’t known for sure what Novak’s reaction to hearing the bar’s name meant. He’d recognized it, sure, but that could’ve been for any number of reasons. Once Dean had outed himself, Novak had let him keep going with it, not bothering to intervene or help out with any of the awkward questions. He also hadn’t asked any of the awkward questions, which still left Dean in the dark about Novak’s connection.

But even ignoring the fact that he couldn’t possibly have obtained all the parts of that outfit on such short notice—not with the way they fit so perfectly and gleamed with obvious care—Novak wore it with such an easy confidence that it was all Dean could do not to drop to his knees in front of Novak’s immaculately shined boots. If they’d met at the Eagle, if he’d seen Novak looking like that and not known who he was, he would’ve done it just to introduce himself.

He did know Novak. They weren’t at The Eagle. They were in the basement of the Chicago PD and they weren’t alone and Dean had been staring for way, way too long.

So, again: Shit.

He cleared his throat and dragged his eyes up from the paddle to meet Novak’s gaze, only that wasn’t any better. Despite the depressing lighting, Novak’s eyes just about sparked with intensity and Dean felt a shiver that had nothing to do with how exposed he was. He had to swallow again before he could force out any words at all, and when he did, even he recognized them as a pathetic attempt.

“So we’re just gonna watch them kill the guy? That’ll go over well when we take it to court.”

Novak’s arched eyebrow did things to Dean that made him more grateful than ever to be wearing sturdy jeans instead of his usual, flimsier dress pants. He was really going to have to do something about his reactions, and fast. He couldn’t work when every move Novak made got him flustered. He could barely think. He had to get it together.

“We’re not going to let them kill him, but we’re not going to start a shoot-out in the bar, either. Your only job is to watch, listen, and make sure you don’t do anything stupid; I’ll handle everything else inside and they’ll handle everything outside.” He gestured to the other three men as he dismissed Dean entirely.

Given how much Dean hated feeling useless—or even worse, like a liability—he wasn’t particularly fond of Novak for making him feel like that. He just wished his dick would get the message, because no amount of dislike made Novak any less painfully attractive. Even his condescension was something Dean could get off on; could imagine choking on Novak’s dick while the man looked down with his cold, disinterested eyes and critiqued his efforts. He’d say Dean could take it deeper if he really tried, if he wanted to keep getting to suck it instead of making Novak have to go find someone better. He’d say Dean looked good with a dick in his mouth, so wasn’t he lucky that he had someone willing to teach him to do it properly? He’d say Dean should show Novak how grateful he was if he wanted to keep getting his help.

If Dean didn’t get his fucking libido under control—well, he’d already shown he couldn’t. But if he couldn’t suppress it, at least he could channel his sexual frustration into something else. Like using it to back up his non-sexual frustration.

“Yeah, I’m gonna propose an alternate plan where you go fuck yourself.”

Novak crossed his arms and frowned and growled, “What did you say?”

Dean ignored what a good impression it was of someone who was about to shove him face-down on a bartop and show him what happened to dumbfucks who decided to get mouthy while flagging right.

“I said go fuck yourself and I’ll say it again: Go fuck yourself. You wanna be a pissy paranoid asshole the rest of the time? It’s bullshit, but fucking whatever, it’s bullshit I can deal with. I draw the line when your bullshit posturing is going to get me killed for no fucking reason. So either I’m in on the plan or I’m out completely.”

Novak tried to stare him down. Dean stared right back, not so much as blinking until he was sure Novak understood just how serious he was. He knew he wasn’t going to flinch first, but he doubted Novak would, either. It was a waiting game to see who would step between them and what they would do about it; who they would side with. The other two had been fine enough standing aside and letting Novak call the shots with whatever paranoid hazing the last weeks had been, but even if they didn’t know or care about him enough to fight over that petty shit—which he couldn’t hold against them, no matter how much it chafed him. They were just keeping their asses out of the line of fire between him and Novak, and they had more reason to back Novak.

But not on something like this. The entire unit couldn’t be that fucked in the head. He already knew that Lafitte wasn’t a total dick, and that was a man who at least knew how investigations went. Might not’ve done any more secret squirrel stuff than Dean, but he’d have done his share of serving warrants that came with a chance of the asshole shooting going down shooting. More than Novak had, never working a case above the basement.

Turner was a mystery, still, and for all Dean knew just as likely to want them both offed so he could listen to his tapes in peace. But now Singer was there, maybe he’d take charge and put the thing to rest once and for all. If he was any kind of decent sergeant at all, remembered what it was like to be a real cop, he’d read Dean in. And if he wasn’t, if he didn’t, Dean would sit his leather-wrapped ass down and take whatever write-up came from it.

Novak broke the silence. He didn’t break, though; didn’t look away, didn’t blink. His expression, hard and cold and hot as fuck, didn’t so much as twitch to give away his intentions. One second he was staring at Dean with an intensity that meant he either wanted to kill him or fuck him—and Dean was pretty sure and regretful about which—the next he was still staring just the same and saying, “Poison isn’t their style, neither is shit that’s gonna draw attention like shooting a man with two dozen or more witnesses.”

More fight was on the tip of Dean’s tongue, almost out before he processed that Novak’s words didn’t match his face and he was, however resentfully, giving Dean what he wanted. Then it hit him that Novak didn’t just know what the Eagle was, he was familiar enough to judge how crowded it would be on a particular night. Better and better. Asking if there was a risk he’d be recognized was probably worth more than Dean’s life just then—especially since there was no way the question wouldn’t be turned around on him.

The thought of explaining that he knew what the Eagle was but had never gone in was even more mortifying than standing around in his current getup. It might save face with the rest of the team, but it was probably too late for that anyway since he’d owned up to enough knowledge about what went on in there to be damning. Worse than any of that, though, Novak would know. He’d know what it meant that Dean had stuck to smaller, less infamous, less hard clubs. He’d known that Dean had been intimidated, and he’d look at him with that cold scorn, and maybe Dean got off on that sometimes but it was always with the knowledge that he and the other guy could get a friendly beer after. He’d never been fucked by someone who genuinely detested him and didn’t think he’d much like trying it.

So he didn’t press Novak on his history at the Eagle. And Novak didn’t ask him about his, just went on explaining the plan with a hard tone and a look that said he was going to find a way to make Dean pay for forcing the issue.

“There’s nowhere in the bar that’ll give Styne’s man enough privacy for a gunshot. If he’s lucky and our victim unlucky, they might get a stall in the bathroom for a stabbing, but still no way to get back out without someone noticing.”

“What, like it’s the kind of joint with attendants in the shitter?” Singer asked with a snort.

Dean almost turned to give that exactly the kind of response it deserved, but that would’ve meant looking away from Novak and he wasn’t willing to do that yet. Turned out Turner had it covered.

“You going senile or you always been this dumb and I just forgot since I don’t have to put up with you every day anymore? It’s the kind of joint with people fucking in the shitter, Bobby. Goddamn attendant, don’t even start with that shit…”

“So,” Novak said, ignoring that back and forth, “they’ll have to take him outside and there’s only the one exit. 

“They oughta have two,” Dean challenged, still feeling punchy. “Fire code and all.”

“Ought to. Don’t.”

Shit, had he given himself away? He couldn’t tell what Novak’s briefly narrowing eyes meant, if not knowing about the exits was enough to prove to Novak he didn’t know the Eagle or if it was just more of Novak’s general good humor and friendliness.

Predictably, the man himself offered no clues. “Turner and Lafitte will be armed and ready to intervene outside, they just need to know they’ve got the right guy. Can’t have them stopping every pair of men who leave without drawing attention ourselves.”

“And we’re the ones making sure of that.”

“I’m the one making sure of that. You’re the one standing around looking pretty and keeping your mouth shut.”

Well that just kicked Dean in the chest from a couple different directions. He plastered on a smirk and asked, “You think I’m pretty?”

Novak’s jaw ticked. “Do you want me to answer that or do you think we can go stop a mob murder? If you don’t need anything else spelled out in small words and big letters, that is.”

Dean clenched his fists tight enough that his knuckles hurt. “Well, sure. You all fired up to prove you’re tougher than the average nerd, want to get out there and swing your… paddle around? Don’t let me stop you. But tell you what, you just remember that if things get hairy in there—and I don’t just mean the guys who look like Lafitte—I’m gonna be the one bailing your ass and the stick up it out.”

He rode to the bar in the passenger seat of Novak’s car. Turner, Lafitte and Singer were going to set up a van in a strip mall lot across the street, listening in as best they could with some sketchy surveillance equipment and nothing set up ahead of time. They weren’t really expecting to hear much, and would mostly be relying on whatever visual signal Novak or Dean managed to get out to them. It was yet another shitty part of the shitty plan, especially since they were still the only backup that he and Novak would get because they didn’t trust anyone else not to be working for the Stynes.

Novak parked a couple of blocks past their destination and shut off the engine, but paused to look at Dean before getting out. “Don’t talk,” he said. “If anyone asks you anything, you let me answer. If anyone tries to separate us, you don’t leave. If you see something, you get my attention and don’t fucking try anything on your own. Clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

Dean meant it to be snide. It even came out with a sarcastic edge to it that would’ve worked in any other circumstance. But sitting there wearing what he was wearing, right next to Novak wearing what Novak was wearing, about to go where they were going and pretend what they were pretending…

All it took was a look from Novak and Dean looked away, feeling his face heat.

Novak waited a beat. It almost felt like he was waiting to see if Dean had more to say, but he’d made it very clear that he didn’t care what Dean had to say about anything. More likely he was using the silence to prove Dean had nothing to say, to make him sit in the discomfort and anticipation. To make him accept Novak’s control of the situation. It was the move of a good top and a good cop, and Dean half hoped he would get a chance to find out which, if either, Novak was.

He was probably imagining it, but it seemed like Novak’s voice might’ve been a bit less harsh when he finally said, “If for any reason you need to use a name, call me Jimmy. But sir is better and nothing at all is best.”

Mouth shut, Dean nodded and followed him out.


	4. Chapter 4

The main door opened to a stairway landing where a man with graying hair, an impressive beard, and a gleaming black leather chest harness took his time looking them over. Dean fought the urge to cross his arms and glare a challenge, but was less successful against the heat that spread over his cheeks again. Fuck, when had he turned into a blushing goddamn virgin? At least Novak wasn’t seeing it happen again.

The man was probably sitting there to discourage lost grannies and overeager tourists, not really to be a bouncer in the usual meaning of the word; the men at the bar would take care of policing themselves. Still, Novak waited as he took a few puffs from his cigar, eyes travelling openly over both of them, then jerked a nod up the stairs.

They came up in one corner of a large, open space that mostly looked like it could’ve been any other decades-old bar in the city. Red brick walls, dark wood that was worn but not run down, a decently sized service counter taking up half of one wall to their left. But most bars didn’t have a couple bootblack stations next to the bartender, or a pillory set far enough from another corner to allow a crowd around it, or a guy laid flat on a table with all the chairs pushed away around it so five other men could take turns railing him and choking him on their dicks.

“Someone’s having a good night,” Dean commented before he could stop himself. Fortunately there was no one else around them to hear, especially not over the grunts and groans of the gang bang, but of course Novak heard and cut him a sharp look.

Dean braced for reprimand or disdain, bit the inside of his lower lip to prepare for keeping his mouth fucking shut while it came, but Novak flashed something almost like a smile at him. It was brief, there and gone in the blink of an eye, but his slightly arched eyebrow stayed behind. “And which of those six would that someone be?”

Looking from Novak to the table and back, Dean raised his own eyebrows but said nothing. They both knew who he’d meant. Novak could probably make some guesses about Dean based on that, and they’d even probably be true, but that didn’t for a second mean that Dean was going to open his mouth and confirm them. Saying nothing at all was best, according to the man himself. Dean could manage saying nothing.

Even if saying nothing was a pain in the ass, and not the kind a guy could expect and enjoy at a place like the Eagle. Even if saying nothing meant he had to just go along with it when Novak wrapped strong fingers around his bicep and all but shoved until Dean was where Novak wanted him, along the wall a few feet from the stairs. Then Novak leaned against the wall himself, so close the smooth leather of his jacket brushed Dean’s bare arm, and said in a low voice, “Let’s enjoy the show.”

It almost made sense. They couldn’t just stand there and stare at everyone without it being notable, and they didn’t want to be notable. They needed to not be notable. So having an excuse for doing nothing but watch, that they were watching something specific and interesting, that wasn’t the worst idea. But they didn’t need to both be doing it, and that was what Dean wanted to say a few words about.

Novak had said his job was to watch and listen, and Dean could’ve done that from the post Novak had picked pretty well. It kept him in sight of the stairs to watch for comings and goings—especially goings, since they didn’t know what the lover or the hitman looked like—but that left a lot of territory uncovered and a lot of potentials unidentified. There were two of them, a fact which was wasted by sticking together the entire time. One of them on the stairs, one circulating to try and get an ID or pick up on any helpful chatter. That was how Dean would’ve run it.

He hadn’t gotten much of a chance to argue for it sooner, though, and it was too late to bring it up without risking their cover. Exactly how Novak had planned things, which just pissed Dean off more. All he could do was get his best look at everyone without being too blatant about it, even while he knew that wasn’t really helping anything. The only useful thing for him to spot would’ve been the soon-to-be murdered leaving with the soon-to-be murderer, everything else was just more irrelevant bullshit. And despite Dean’s general displeasure at Novak’s entire existence, that was something even he should’ve been able to see. So it still left Dean feeling useless.

Useless and frustrated, and not just professionally.

Dean himself had never been fucked over a dozen times in a row, but fuck if he and his dick weren’t having a hell of a time imagining it as the man on the table in front of them took eleven men in the time they stood there watching. The stamina alone—just being a spectator had Dean stiff enough for long enough that things were starting to chafe. They’d stopped using the guy’s mouth early on in things, just kept lining up to take his ass, and he took advantage of that freedom to moan and swear and challenge them to fuck him harder. No one involved had been slouching in the first place, but that didn’t stop him from yelling it or the tops from doubling down in response.

It took all Dean’s concentration to keep that scene from taking up all his concentration. He was only stealing enough glances to keep it believable, or trying to at least, but he knew he gave away too much of his hidden hunger every time he did. There was nothing he could do about that, didn’t know how to stop it even when he caught Novak looking at him with the same subtle consideration he was giving the rest of the men. And fuck it, he was just playing the role Novak had required of him, right? Even if Novak could tell it was more than just acting, he’d never be able to prove it.

Of course, because Dean’s luck was what it had been of late, Novak wasn’t the only one to notice. One of the men waiting his turn to join in the fun also took note, catching Dean’s eyes across the table for a second before Dean noticed it was happening, and what he saw made him leer and swagger closer.

“Are you here to play, too?” he asked. It drew some attention from the crowd, but only some, what with the main event still going strong just a few feet from them.

Dean opened his mouth to decline, figuring it would be as easy as that—he’d only been around once for a man who hadn’t taken well to being told no at his usual spot, which had less old-guard honor than the Eagle, but even there the pushy asshole had been out on his ass with a black eye within five minutes. Novak just had to make it more complicated than that, though. He slid his arm behind Dean, curled it around his waist and used it to pull him in so his entire back pressed one long line into Novak’s side and his ass rested against Novak’s thigh.

His voice as rough and deep as Dean had ever heard it, right in Dean’s ear, Novak said, “I don’t share.” It was a simple statement of fact. He didn’t sound offended or angry at having been asked—at the question having been asked at all, since it hadn’t actually been directed at Novak—but the answer and the way he’d butted in to give it were both convincingly possessive enough that as the man nodded his acceptance and turned back to the table, Dean almost believed them, too.

It wasn’t a great time to realize he wanted that from someone. Not necessarily Novak. No, fuck that, definitely not Novak. That was asking for so many disasters it spiked his adrenaline just thinking about it. But having a real, steady relationship instead of random hookups. Someone he could trust to give it to him how he liked and not look down on him in the morning, who could live with the fact that he was always going to be his job with its stress and risks and long hours, who liked him enough to really want to keep him—

Which was never going to happen, and it was pretty pathetic of him to be thinking about that with where he was and what he was doing.

That line of thinking did pretty effectively kill his inconvenient boner, though. It also pushed his irritation far enough over the top that he decided to risk Novak’s wrath for the sake of arguing better operational efficiency. Novak had already put Dean close enough to talk without being obvious what it was about, but he took advantage and turned, just barely, but it was enough to put his mouth right at Novak’s cheek. Intimate distance, maybe even enough to pass for a kiss at a glance.

“We should try to find him.”

Novak’s arm tightened around him, maybe in reflex, maybe in warning. He said nothing.

“We follow the wrong couple out of here, and what? We look like we’re angling for a foursome and we can’t just stroll back in and do it again in ten minutes.”

Dean’s field of vision was filled by the side of Novak’s face, so he had a good view of the muscles in his jaw tensing and shifting for several seconds before any words came out.

“That would be awkward. You think there’s a significant risk of misidentifying them?”

“I think we’ve got at least three lives riding on it, including yours and mine. So you tell me what’s significant.”

The noise Novak made was probably thought or agreement, but it sounded close enough to a growl to send a thrill down Dean’s spine and other, even less helpful parts of his anatomy. He didn’t know what it was about Novak that made him feel like a desperate, undersexed teenager, especially when he hadn’t even been desperate and undersexed as a teenager. But the guy played his part like second nature, like he really did the leather top thing and took pride in doing it well.

Of course, he’d recognized the name of the bar just like Dean. And he’d produced that outfit, that paddle which even without closer inspection—how badly Dean wanted to inspect it more closely was an entirely separate problem—was clearly quality craftsmanship. It wasn’t some mass-produced bullshit made for sororities and overpriced “adult novelty” stores. That paddle looked like it could turn asses red all day, could beat them black and blue and never so much as think about leaving a splinter behind. And it was right there, one corner bumping the back of Dean’s leg when Novak shifted his weight. If he pushed back into Novak a little further—

“What do you think we should do?”

Just barely in time, he remembered that Novak wasn’t asking about plans for the paddle, Dean’s ass, or combining the two. It was almost enough to make him concede Novak might’ve been right about his unreliability, since he couldn’t seem to focus for more than two minutes without getting stupid with horniness. Once they’d dealt with the Styne sting, he was gonna have to go out and get laid every night for a week just to get his dick back under control.

Until then, he would just have to keep reminding himself to fucking focus.

“The visitor we’re expecting? We know his voice and we know he’s about as smooth as sandpaper when he tries to pretend he knows what he’s talking about. I’m not saying we completely stop watching the stairs, but we can also try talking to some of the guys, see if we recognize our friend. We stay within view and one of us can keep an eye on the door at all times.”

Novak tensed again and Dean rolled his eyes where no one could see.

“You can try talking and I can keep an eye on the door. I know, I know, keep my fucking mouth shut unless I see something.”

“Keep your mouth shut even if you do see something,” Novak said after a pause long enough that Dean was getting ready to give it up as a lost cause. “Unless someone’s going to be shot within ten seconds, I don’t want you doing anything someone could notice. And don’t think I won’t be looking out, too. You let them slip out or try to pull anything and I will make your entire life hell. Do you understand?”

Dean pulled back until he could look Novak in the eye, even though it meant twisting his neck past the point of comfort. He covered Novak’s hand on his waist with his own; just two leathermen having a sweet moment. “You ever gonna trust me, Jimmy?”

Novak’s hard stare said no, though his lips said nothing. If he hadn’t known to look for it, Dean wouldn’t have been able to tell that Novak was actually looking past him to the stairs. Didn’t mean he wasn’t still clearly waiting for an acknowledgment.

“Ten-four,” Dean agreed with a sigh.

Fingers dug in under the cover of Dean’s hand, pointed and painful as Novak’s mouth thinned in silent rebuke. Silence. Fucking fine. Smiling sweetly, Dean squeezed Novak’s hand four times instead.

Novak’s whole body twitched, which seemed like a hell of an overreaction to Dean paying back his obnoxious focus on playing half-assed secret agent until Novak dragged Dean all the way against him to put his mouth against Dean’s ear. Then it was Dean’s turn to shiver, brain short-circuiting so thoroughly that he couldn’t even process whatever Novak had said, just that it was deep and rumbling and he felt the warm breath that carried it.

Then he said, “Dean,” a frustrated growl that got Dean’s dick to pay attention and also Dean himself to pay attention. So he heard it when Novak repeated, “He’s here.”

“Which one?” he whispered back.

In place of Novak’s answer, an approaching voice said, overly loud and familiar, “Well don’t you two look cozy!”

Without breaking out of Novak’s hold, Dean turned his head the opposite way to look in the direction of the stairs. He understood and shared Novak’s surprise, the panicked moment of everything going to shit at once with no forewarning.

It wasn’t the hitman they’d heard on the wire. It also wasn’t Junior’s unknown lover, which Dean only knew for sure because it was Junior Styne himself.

And fuck if he didn’t look like the most annoyingly macho leather daddy wannabe Dean had ever seen—and Dean had wasted enough time in second- and third-rate clubs to have a pretty wide selection to base that on. It wasn’t even that his choice of clothing was completely stupid, though he was trying too hard with a red six-strap chest harness on over a black leather vest and a keyring hanging off his left side that looked like it had been stolen from a cowboy movie’s prop table. Mostly it was the fact the thick biker’s jacket he had on over that arrangement crinkled loudly every time he moved, and he walked like a man who had never before been forced to rethink the decision to go commando in leather pants.

There were so many things they should’ve planned for, if they hadn’t been in such a goddamn hurry and confrontational about every second of it. The whole stupid idea had been thrown together with a couple hours, a severe lack of trust, and a not-insignificant amount of spite on all sides. Not ideal in any circumstance, but especially not for how little support and communication he and Novak had from the rest of the already tiny team. So yeah, there was a long list of things they probably could’ve considered before throwing themselves into leathers and hitting up the bar, but at the very top, the thing Dean was so fucking pissed at himself and Novak and Turner for not even giving a passing thought:

Junior fucking Styne showing up for a chat. What a fucking stupid, obvious thing to miss. If that was the thing that got Dean killed, well shit, he couldn’t even say he didn’t deserve it. There was really only one thing to do for the moment, and that was to stick to the only thing that vaguely resembled an agreed upon strategy until they could either work out a better one or everything went further sideways and he had to make it up as he went.

Dean kept his fucking mouth shut, hoped Novak was half as good as his insistence at running things indicated he thought he was, and prepared to intervene with whatever bullshit he could come up with if it turned out Novak was useless.

To his credit, aside from his initial reaction, Novak didn’t show any outward signs of distress. “It’s the first time I’ve brought him here,” he said, perfectly even. “He seems to like it.”

“That’s funny! I’m new too.” Junior stood right next to them, closer than strangers usually got in the first two sentences of conversation unless they were fucking a new friend or hoping to. If Junior was hoping to fuck them, he was going to be real disappointed, and from what Dean had learned about him since being reassigned, he wasn’t really a guy who took disappointment well. Had the guys in the van seen him come in? Did they have a plan or were they trusting Novak to have it under control?

“Is that so.”

He really had to hand it to Novak, he was treating Junior just like any other random asshole who’d interrupted some quality time with his boy. Cool and commanding, possessive and just barely short of dismissive, no indication that he knew who Junior was and that Junior would probably have him killed if he knew who Novak was. Maybe it was going to be enough to get them back on track to prevent the murder they were trying to prevent—though of course Junior’s presence was bound to complicate that.

“Yeah. A buddy of mine, you know, a real good friend?” He paused there, waiting for Novak to notice the meaning of his stressed emphasis and leaving Dean wondering how the fuck he’d managed to stay so closeted that the guys on the wire had been surprised by it. “I was gonna come here with him next weekend, but we had a bit of a falling out.”

Junior’s laugh sent chills down Dean’s spine, and not the kind that sparked something tight and hot between his legs like the shivers Novak had been giving him all night. That kind of laugh from that kind of man after saying that kind of thing… With a clear and sinking certainty, Dean knew the boyfriend they were trying to protect wasn’t already at the bar and he wasn’t going to be coming to the bar. He wouldn’t be going anywhere ever again, because he was dead. Junior had killed him and come to the leather bar to, what, celebrate? Find a new man?

Dean was a good cop, a good detective. He didn’t panic, he dealt with shit and got the job done because someone needed to do it. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t aware that he had never been in more danger in his life, and just because he could work through the fear didn’t mean he wasn’t scared. It just meant he had to shove that fear down like any other feeling that got in his way.

“I’m glad I decided to come here anyway, see things for myself. Tell me, do you really know how to use that thing, or are you just another limp dick carrying it around like a trophy?” Junior waved a careless pointer finger at Novak’s paddle. The irony was not lost on Dean.

“I made it myself,” Novak answered, and the hours Dean had spent watching him work on tiny little doll chairs took on a whole new meaning, “and I do, indeed, know how to use it.”

“Great. I wanna see you hit him with it.”

There was a long pause that felt very, very dangerous before Novak said, “No.”

The good humor dropped from Junior’s face in an instant, replaced by exactly the kind of reddening rage Dean had anticipated. “Do you know who I am?” he demanded, every inch a spoiled kid leaning on his daddy’s importance to get his way. He had to be the weak link of the family, no discipline to speak of. Made him a shitty mobster and a shitty top, but could be useful information for their investigation.

If they stayed alive to do any more investigation, which didn’t seem like a sure thing with the way Novak looked Junior over and asked, voice still flat, “Should I?”

Junior leaned in, trying to loom without much success but coming across plenty unhinged anyway. “I’m a very important man from a very important family. And I got buddies who are very prone to violence and like keeping me happy. So I suggest you put your fucking twink over your knee and spank him before I decide I wanna do it myself. You get me, pal?”

Being called a twink was really the least of Dean’s problems with that statement, but it still irritated him from a man who looked like he’d go down from a single half decent punch. Seeing as they didn’t know if Junior had brought any of his violent friends along to follow through on that threat, he wasn’t gonna test that theory. He also wasn’t gonna test the limits of Novak’s stubbornness, because he’d seen enough of that to know it wasn’t likely to go well. Dean’s luck had been shitty enough lately that he wasn’t about to push it, and since it was literally his ass on the line, he figured it was time for a careful intervention.

“Jimmy, baby, don’t be like that.”

Novak’s arm tightened uncomfortably around him. It wasn’t the play they’d agreed on—the play Novak had decided on and Dean had gone along with for lack of any better options—but it seemed like the right angle for the kind of shithead who would call Dean a twink and threaten to spank him without giving a fuck what Dean or his supposed partner thought about it. He just needed Novak to take the hint and play along with it.

“I know it’s not what you were planning, but it sounds like fun to me. That’s what we’re here for, remember?”

He moved the hand Junior couldn’t see until he was touching Novak’s thigh and there he squeezed slowly, deliberately, four times. The signal that had been meant as sarcasm, but Dean was glad to have it if it worked to remind Novak what they were really there for and to let him know that Dean really was ready to do what needed to be done.

When he felt Novak’s head move, Dean turned, too, meeting his eyes without hesitation. Yeah, he was still terrified. Yeah, he had no idea what was going on behind Novak’s cold, hard eyes. Yeah, getting forced into a sexual situation with a coworker who hated him wasn’t exactly ideal for either of them, but it was the best option they had. Novak’s jaw clenched, worked from side to side, then all the muscles Dean could feel from where they touched lost their tension and he nodded.

“Very well. Dean, bring me a chair.”

Novak’s hands left him with the command. Dean hadn’t realized how much he was leaning into the other man until the support was gone and he stumbled, but he caught himself quickly and obeyed. He grabbed one of the discarded chairs from the gang bang table, which had cleared out sometime since the last time he looked over, probably when they were arguing about their next steps or talking to Junior. The chair went down in front of Novak, turned so they’d be facing Junior when Novak sat down, and Dean stood to the side and waited.

For all his initial reluctance, it seemed Novak had decided to commit; he sat without any more arguing, his feet planted and his legs spread in a way that provided a solid base for a guy Dean’s size and also showed off the bulge nestled between his broad thighs. He wasn’t hard, but his leathers were well-fitting and smooth as butter, and the lights from above fell into highlights and shadows that couldn’t have haloed his junk better if he’d set up actual spotlights. Of course even his dick and balls were flagging left.

Dean was ready for an order to lay himself out over Novak’s lap. What he got instead was a hand grabbing him by the belt and giving a sharp tug that unbalanced him into falling across Novak. But Novak’s confident grip steadied him, guided him on the way down so he ended up folded just right over Novak’s lap, ass sticking out, chest supported by Novak’s forearm.

“Hands on the side of the chair,” Novak said. Dean braced himself on the edge of the seat. “Feet further apart,” Novak said. Dean spread his legs a few more inches. “Kiss the paddle and thank me.” Dean—

Needed a minute on that. Needed a minute to wrap his head around the way Novak didn’t just look like all his deepest fantasies put together, he was acting like them, too.

He didn’t get a minute.

Novak held the paddle, which he must’ve taken off his belt while Dean was getting the chair, up to Dean’s mouth and Dean gave himself over to it. The wood felt just as perfect under his lips as he’d imagined, polished and dense and warm from the heat of Novak’s body where it had been hanging all night. Just then Novak’s palm settled on the curve of Dean’s ass and that was warm, too, even through the sturdy denim.

Dean’s mouth dropped open as fingers started to knead his flesh; warming him up, displaying ownership, delaying the inevitable. Whatever Novak’s goal was, the result he was getting was Dean’s dick noticing that there were fingers poking around in the general area where he really liked having fingers. “Thank you, sir,” he forced out, trying to keep it from sounding as shaky as he felt but not sure he succeeded.

“Ready?”

There was barely any pause between Dean’s affirmative answer and Novak’s hand leaving him, and even less time between that and the paddle coming down across both cheeks with a smack that he heard before he felt it. It wasn’t even that hard, that first hit, but it drove home the reality of his situation in a way Dean had been trying to ignore, because—fuck.

Fuck. He was bent over Novak’s lap, ass up, and it was the most terrible and embarrassing moment of his life but he was so fucking hard. That was part of what made it so terrible and embarrassing: There was no way Novak didn’t feel it, not when every stroke of the paddle rocked his dick into Novak’s thigh. Dean lost track of the count and of time in general after four hits but around the same time he became aware of the needy little grunts that punched out of him each time the wood landed on his ass.

The force and frequency increased until he forgot why they had started, who their audience was, everything else in the world except that he was hurting and hard and happy. At some point, the paddle smacked him so hard he lost his grip on the side of Novak’s chair and his chest dropped across Novak’s lap fully, and something that felt a lot like a dick pushed up into his stomach. But it wasn’t something he had a lot of time or brain cells to dedicate to, because the very next second the stripe of wood came down on his ass again and he came.

In his pants.

Bent over Novak’s lap.


	5. Chapter 5

Three seconds later, Dean was ready to sink into the floor, or crawl all the way under Novak’s chair and stay there until the end of days, or tell Junior exactly who he was and why he was there and let himself get shot in the head. All of those seemed like better options than ever having to look Novak in the eye again. Fuck, how had he let that happen? Doing what they had to to keep Junior happy, that was one thing, but Dean getting off on it was so far past okay. Maybe he’d take Moncrieff’s advice and throw himself off the roof after all. Wasn’t like there was anywhere else to go after getting kicked out of the wire unit, and he couldn’t imagine they’d be keeping him around after the night was over.

Novak had already wanted him gone, and Dean just gave him all the ammunition he’d ever need, with the ruined underwear to prove it.

That was a problem for the future, though. They still needed to escape Junior before dealing with any of that, and Junior didn’t seem keen on letting them go.

“That was an even better show than I was expecting! Great work—Jimmy, yeah? Great fucking work, man, you really gave it to him. How’s that feeling there, pretty boy?”

Jesus, Dean was not prepared to deal with him yet, not when everything felt so raw. If he was going to go down for being a weak pervert anyway, then fuck it. There was no use trying to save face with Novak anymore and Junior wanted him to be soft, so Dean gave in and let himself be soft. He tucked his face into the black pants molded over Novak’s thigh, buried his nose in the scent of leather and sweat and musk that were so strong he could pretend, for just that one moment of weakness, that nothing else mattered.

Novak stiffened under him—not his dick, though that was still noticeably more prominent than it had been earlier. His body tensed, surprised and no doubt uncomfortable at the intimate contact Dean had no right to force on him. But just before Dean could pull himself together enough to pull away, everything relaxed again and Novak’s hand landed softly in his hair. It was a grounding touch, comforting but firm enough that Dean had no room to think he might be imagining it petting over his head.

“He’s fine. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”

That was addressed to Dean. That was Novak, the scratch of his fingers in Dean’s hair taking on a pattern of four beats before going back to directionless circling. That was something Dean needed to answer. He finished pulling himself together, still feeling like a mess in so many ways, and let Novak push him up by the arm and chest to help him back to standing. Novak stayed seated and didn’t let go of Dean’s wrist, and though Dean could tell Novak was looking up at him, his own gaze was fixed on the paddle in Novak’s other hand.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Thank you, sir.”

“And thank you, sweetheart.” Novak’s voice was so tender, sounded so heartbreakingly sincere that Dean didn’t know what the fuck he was supposed to do with it.

Once again, Junior helpfully interrupted the moment. “Come on, I want to buy you a drink and get to know you better. I insist,” he added, stressed with just enough hint of malice that it was clear he wasn’t going to be allowing any refusal for that request, either.

What could they do but go? Junior claimed three empty seats at the far end of the bar and ordered three whiskey doubles. The second the bartender provided them, Junior downed his and ordered three more. Novak pulled his and Dean’s in front of himself, giving an excuse too low for Dean to hear and which he definitely wasn’t going to question under the circumstances. He figured it was either desperation to forget what just happened or a show of trust. They couldn’t both get drunk, but at least one of them had to or Junior’s insult could easily turn violent again. By keeping Dean sober, Novak was trusting him to stay sharp to what Junior was saying and to protect them both if shit hit the fan.

But given the way Novak had angled himself away from Dean, his full attention on Junior without even the slightest bit of interest in the fact that Dean was still there, it seemed like it was probably the first option: Ignoring Dean and pretending that would make him go away.

It wasn’t even like he needed to be focused on keeping Junior occupied, because the man didn’t shut up from the moment he put down his first drink. 

They learned in short order that Junior’s lover was a man named Ron Van Allen, and that Junior had met him because his wife was a friend of Junior’s buddy’s wife. “So Don brings Van Allen—we all called him that because Don and Ron, you know, and Don’s half deaf and always thought we was talking to him instead of Ron. So Don brings Van Allen golfing once, when their little ladies were doing some weekend social I don’t know what bullshit like ladies do, and I can tell right away that Van Allen is one of them shy little queers. Like your pretty boy, you know?”

Junior sloshed his half-full glass in Dean’s direction, then downed it and waved for more. Novak, face set and unreadable, knocked back the rest of his first drink and picked up the next. Two more sat in front of him.

“We started up a thing and it was fun while it lasted, you know how guys like that are, always desperate to get fucked. But his wife was a bitch and he got to talking about—well, you remember what I said about being important? He thought it was a good idea to start threatening to use that against me and some of my associates. And I’m sure it was all her idea, little bitch. So now him and his wife? They ain’t gonna be little bitches to anyone else ever again. Problem solved.”

Holy fucking shit. They’d come to the Eagle trying to prevent a murder and had just got Junior Styne confessing to that same murder, and a second one too. As good as a confession, at least, if they could actually confirm the identities and the deaths. But they wouldn’t be able to do any of that from the bar, and couldn’t get the information out to the rest of the team right then, either. Since Novak was nursing his third double, Dean would probably have to be the one to remember all that.

Novak wasn’t doing too badly with his alcohol, though. Good thing, too, because the very next thing Junior asked was, “So how’d you two lovebirds meet?”

Maybe it was for the best that Dean wasn’t included in the conversation, because he’d have run face-first into that question and come up with fucking nothing. They hadn’t done any actual work on their covers, didn’t have any backstory arranged beforehand. It wasn’t supposed to be that in-depth of a thing. Having just one of them make shit up was less likely to get them turned around and caught in a lie than both of them talking across each other, and Novak was doing remarkably well keeping things straight and plausible even though he was matching Junior drink for drink.

It was just too bad that part of the shit Novak made up was that he was an accountant who’d done Dean’s taxes for him.

“No shit?” Junior leaned forward too quickly and had to catch himself on the bar, which resulted in him dropping his whiskey. He frowned down at it, then grabbed one of the glasses from in front of Novak and carried right on. “I need a new money guy. My last one seriously fucked me over, I don’t even know if he was stealing or just fucking dumb. But he’s out of the picture now,”—the same murderous giggle that meant Ron Van Allen was a corpse somewhere—“and it must be fucking fate, because here you are! You’re gonna come work for me. Be the new accountant at my branch of Styne & Sons.”

“That’s a very kind offer, Mr. Styne—”

“Everyone calls me Junior.”

“—but I have a job already.”

“I don’t care,” declared Junior, “this one’s better. I’ll pay you better, shit, I’ll even give you a great house. I’ve got one across the street from mine that no one’s using, it’s real nice. I wanna be your friend, Jimmy. I wanna learn all about you and Dean.”

Dean liked Junior ignoring him a hell of a lot more than Junior leering at him, but he forced on an extra special smile. And kept his mouth shut, at least so long as it seemed like Novak had things under control.

Which he seemed to. When Junior turned back to him and started looking serious again—as serious as a drunken overgrown child could look—and said, “I’d hate to have to worry that we aren’t friends after everything I’ve told you,” Novak put on an equally grave face and rested a reassuring hand on Junior’s shoulder.

“We are friends. I would love to come work for you.”

“Great!” If it hadn’t been for the threats of death that had preceded it, Dean might’ve called Junior’s delight childlike. As it was, he was mostly impressed that a real, living person could make Batman villains look well-adjusted. “I’ve got a driver waiting, he can take us now.”

“Now,” Novak said, wobbling it a bit like the alcohol was finally catching up to him, “now wait, hold on. It’s, it’s very late. And I owe Dean a very hard fucking that I haven’t decided if he gets to enjoy. I’d like to see to that in my own bed tonight. Can we meet you in the morning? If I’m quitting my job, I don’t have anywhere else to be.”

“Ha! I knew I liked you. Good thinking, Jimmy, good thinking. But can Dean come, too? What is it you do, sweetie?”

“He only works part time,” Novak said before Dean could get a word in. “Kindergarten teacher. He’ll be there.”

Of all the fucking stereotypical bullshit—but of course, Junior loved it.

“Of course he is! I bet he’s just so sweet with the little shits. Okay, tomorrow morning.” Junior scribbled an address on a scrap of receipt with a pen borrowed from Novak and extracted another promise that they’d be there in the morning, then shooed them away with some extra leering about their plans.

Novak, who’d leaned on Dean all the way across the floor and to the stairs, sobered up miraculously when they hit the cool night air—but he still gave Dean his keys before they got to the car. They left the parking lot without meeting up with the rest of the team, just in case Junior had someone like the driver he mentioned keeping an eye on them, and Dean took a looping route out toward the suburbs to make sure they were clear before circling back toward the basement.

Neither of them said a word the entire time.

They found Turner, Lafitte, and Singer waiting for them in the basement. He let Novak fill them in on what had gone down—most of it, anyway. His motive for leaving out the mess in Dean’s jeans was a mystery to ponder another time, like after he’d been able to shower it off and maybe burn everything he was wearing on his lower half. To his surprise, Novak didn’t need any help recalling the details that Dean thought would be lost in the whiskey. To his irritation, Novak’s alcohol tolerance was kind of a turn-on and he really didn’t need more reasons to find the guy hot.

At the end, Turner looked up from his page of notes and asked, “So, are you gonna do it?”

“Of course not,” Dean said, at the same time as Novak said, “Yes.”

They looked at each other. Novak looked confused rather than angry, and Dean was sure he had to look just as dumbfounded.

“Are you serious? There’s no way we’d get away with it. We have nothing set up, no proof of our backgrounds or identities, no way to set any of that up in, what, nine hours? And how the fuck are you going to pretend to know anything about the money shit he needs long enough to get a good look at the books?”

Singer coughed out a laugh as Novak’s head tipped slightly to the side. To prove Dean’s luck hadn’t improved in the least, Novak said, “I’m trained as a forensic accountant. There would be no pretending required.”

Guys who’d spent years training for shit like what they were proposing still ended up dead on a regular basis, and they were trying to get away with it on half a night’s crazed planning with a couple other morons fueled by Chicago’s most questionable coffee. There was absolutely no reason to think they would make it out alive. But Dean didn’t see much future for himself anyway, and he’d always assumed he was going to die on the job. At least he would get to go out doing real police work, maybe even do a bit of good if they managed to pass on the right information before everything went to shit.

“And the rest of it? The stuff from tonight he might expect more of?” Dean had to ask, because maybe Novak could forget that Dean’s crotch was full of dried come, but Dean sure as shit couldn’t.

Novak paused, studying Dean as though it had never even occurred to him that might be an issue. “It’s your decision,” he said finally, like he was doing Dean a favor by it. “I think we should do this, but if that makes you uncomfortable we can go back to standard procedure.”

Like it wasn’t a problem for Novak, like he didn’t care either way. Like he didn’t want to, but he’d do it if it meant getting Junior and Senior; like he’d rather go back to ignoring Dean except when he had something pissy to say. And didn’t that just make Dean feel shitty and desperate and perverted, because a significant part of him actually did want it to happen again. But he pushed it down with enough force that it turned into defiantly agreeing they should do it.

“Fuck it, okay. Let’s play house and try to catch the mob. And hey, if you gotta put on a Zorro mask and slap me a few times to get it done, I think we’ll both survive.”


	6. Chapter 6

The house that Junior proudly directed them to the next morning was as big as Dean’s entire aging apartment building, if not bigger. It wasn’t a mansion the size of Junior’s own, right across the street, but it was still a hell of a thing. The exterior was all brick—the nice kind, where it wasn’t all the same mass-produced color but still looked like every brick belonged there. And none of them were missing, either, or even had significant chunks broken off as far as Dean could see.

He’d been to some nice houses in some of his investigations, but a place like this was way outside his area, likely to be turfed out to someone above his pay grade. Shit, there was detailed stonework above the door, which itself had a heavy-duty stained glass window at the top and a shiny silver kick plate at the bottom that didn’t have any scuffs at all from actually being kicked.

“This is too much,” Novak protested before Junior had even opened the door, reading Dean’s mind and saying what he wasn’t allowed to. “Really, Mr. Styne—”

“I told you to call me Junior!” Despite the late night and significant amount of alcohol they knew Junior had had, he didn’t look much the worse for wear that morning. Still, Dean couldn’t be sure if his snap irritation at Novak’s unwanted formality was the fault of a concealed hangover or just how he was as a person. Either way, he hoped Novak didn’t push it. They knew the guy was volatile enough to murder his lover over an argument, and he only had a single evening’s attachment to the two of them.

Ron‘s body still hadn’t turned up, or the wife’s, but Lafitte had made an early-morning stop at the house. Nobody answering at 3 a.m. wasn’t a very good sign. He or Turner would try again later in the day, see if they could track down where either Van Allen worked and see if they were there, but nobody was expecting good news on that front.

Luckily, Novak had enough sense to nod solemnly and say, “Right, Junior. Sorry, just used to office bullshit, you know.”

“No, I really don’t know, but that’s what makes working for me so great!”

Junior laughed, then Novak laughed, then Dean laughed. It was all painfully forced, but Junior either didn’t notice or didn’t care. He just kept on guffawing at his own joke after Dean’s awkward chuckles died off and Novak’s faded into a wide smile. Though to his credit, Novak was actually pretty convincing in his amusement. Dean had seen him in a good mood a few rare times, usually when he was talking to Lafitte about Elizabeth or to Turner about how they were going to take down the mob and take over the world or whatever else they plotted in hushed tones at the desk in the corner; his reactions to Junior didn’t look all that different from the real thing.

Much as he hated to admit it, Novak might’ve been better suited to the half-assed undercover job than Dean first thought. He was holding up better than Dean, even, which also pissed him off. But it suited his role—stereotypical bullshit though it was—for Dean to come off less confident than ‘Jimmy,’ so he had to stop his natural instinct of one-upping the macho display. It was something he’d learned to do pretty early on, trying to draw from what his dad would’ve done instead of what he wanted to do in the presence of men who seemed like they could fuck him rough the way he liked it. Worked pretty well most of the time, kept him from giving himself away when he spent years working with men whose commanding personalities had the muscle to back them up.

Junior didn’t fall into that category, but Novak—

He hadn’t thought Novak did, either, until the night before. Until Novak had not just seemed like the kind of guy who could fuck Dean rough the way he liked it; he’d actually done it. It was almost impossible for Dean to think of anything else with Novak standing right next to him, much less focus on the intricacies of his act.

And if he’d thought that couldn’t get worse, he was proven wrong when Novak’s arm settled around the small of his back. There was no way Novak didn’t feel the way his whole body shuddered into the contact.

From his smirk, Junior hadn’t missed it either. Dean didn’t really give a shit what Junior thought—except for the part where he needed Junior to believe certain things to keep them alive. So on that front, it was good that he saw Dean’s reaction and made the assumptions he would about what it meant. But Dean had a hard time feeling good about it when it wasn’t a conscious part of his cover; his sudden and consuming lust for Novak wasn’t in his control at all. That was more likely to get them into trouble than keep them out of it.

Junior didn’t know any of that, but Novak did. His arm tightened around Dean briefly, warningly, but his voice was even when he said, “This is very generous for just the two of us, Junior.”

“Generous nothing, you’re gonna work for it. I just make sure to take good care of the people who work for me. And I had the house already, it’s not a big deal. Saves me the trouble of selling it, and I’m sure Jimmy here can figure out a way for it to come off my taxes. Right?”

He slapped Novak on the back hard enough for Dean to feel it, then stepped away to dig around in his pockets for the keys. It gave Novak and Dean more room to breathe, but Novak didn’t take advantage of the empty space by moving away from Dean at all, and he knew better than to try to disengage on his own under the circumstances. Even if the most unsettling thing about waiting on a murderous mob scion to let them in to their new house worth more than Dean’s entire life was that he was pressed close enough to Novak’s side to smell him. The scent wasn’t as strong as it had been with his face in Novak’s lap, wasn’t quite the same without the addition of body-warm leather, but it was there and driving Dean out of his mind.

Biting his lip brought him out of that spiral, but proved to not be as effective a focusing method as it usually was. Pain didn’t distract him from Novak. Still, he had to get his shit together, so he forced out an even cheerier smile and inserted himself into the conversation like the doting little man-wife he was pretending to be.

“Of course he can,” he said, resting a hand on Novak’s chest and hating himself a little bit because he knew he wasn’t just going so far to sell it. “Jimmy’s so clever with things like that.”

Beneath his touch, Novak’s muscles tensed; his hand on Dean’s hip dug in a little too sharp to be friendly. All he said was, “I’ll certainly see what we can do with that. Is it a family home?”

“Nah, it’s not like that. Saw it for sale a few months back so I figured I’d buy it. I was gonna give it to my friend, you know, the one I was telling you about? But hey, he ain’t gonna need it anymore, right?”

Caught up in how much he amused himself again, Junior missed the look Dean and Novak exchanged. They weren’t just moving into a mob house as the new pets of an impulsive murderer, they were about to occupy what was effectively a dead man’s house. The last pet’s.

Dean made a note to check for fresh cement around the foundation.

The inside of the house lived up to the promises of the outside. It was like nothing Dean had ever seen, and he didn’t bother hiding it; Junior puffed up as he showed off the formal dining room and huge kitchen, the library-like office for Novak to “get all that math shit done, you know,” the fully furnished entertaining room complete with wet bar and massive gas fireplace.

“Had that converted as soon as I bought the place,” Junior bragged. “Can you believe the idiots who used to own it were still fucking around with wood? Maybe they were just too old to know better, but that’s still almost too dumb to excuse. No one wants to deal with that mess.”

Dean liked wood fireplaces. His parents’ house had had one and he’d loved playing with it as a kid. He remembered afternoons helping his dad chop logs and stack the pieces on the wood pile, countless winter evenings learning the best ways to arrange firewood and newspaper so the entire living room was warmed by the glow. He’d talked Sam and Sarah out of going with gas when they renovated their townhouse, even built them a little shed in their postage-stamp backyard to keep their wood seasoned, and he didn’t think Judy ever loved her uncle more than when he was visited and passed on some of the art of fire-making that his dad had taught him.

Dean said, “Oh, yeah. Gas is definitely the way to go.”

Fortunately, Junior didn’t insist on sticking around to show them any of the four bedrooms. He did make a comment about the capacity of the master bathroom’s jacuzzi tub that had Dean wondering if he’d tried it out with Ron before offing him. Senior could’ve burst in at that moment or any moment after with a gun to Dean’s head and only one way for him to save himself, and Dean would still die before setting foot in that tub.

Not to be dramatic about it.

Of course, it didn’t come to that. Junior took one last look around the main hall of the first floor and declared, “I got some shit to take care of, so I’ll leave you fellas to settle in. You sure you don’t want my movers? They’re a good crew, won’t give you any shit.”

“That is so sweet of you!” Dean filled the words with as much of their own sweetness as he could without choking on them.

He still didn’t like it, but at least with Novak a little further away from him, he could concentrate on really playing up the camp. It was so far from who he was, even from any of the parts of him he sometimes had to suppress, that it turned out to be pretty easy once he put his mind to it; keeping up the act felt like a release of tension, one less thing to worry about. Whether he could keep it up under pressure remained to be seen: tempers ran in the family. But when he had Novak to play off of and Junior in what seemed to be a good mood, it flowed out as easily as any other bullshit he’d had to come up with in his life.

It also helped him remember what the fuck was going on between him and Novak—nothing; nothing real—because when he threw himself at a top for real, it looked nothing like the show of effeminate fawning he was putting on. It would’ve gotten his ass beat in any self-respecting leather bar, and not in the fun way, but Junior didn’t know shit about self-respecting leathermen.

Leaning in just enough to play at friendly conspiracy without getting anywhere near uncomfortably close to Junior, Dean said, “Jimmy’s just a little particular about his personal things, you know? Didn’t even let me see his underwear drawer for a good six months.”

Novak shot him a dark look, but in his character Dean was able to laugh it off instead of feeling a thrill of anticipatory dread. They weren’t wearing leathers, and even if they had been, Novak couldn’t do anything to him once Junior wasn’t around to force them to keep up the act. Maybe he still had to remind himself that was a good thing, but fuck, he wasn’t perfect.

“We don’t have much,” Novak said.

Even though Dean was still learning the guy, he knew enough to recognize the tightness in his voice and take a perverse pride in it. It wasn’t anything Junior should’ve been able to pick out, nothing that put them in any danger, but it was the first sign of anything affecting Novak. Even Dean busting a nut in his lap hadn’t wrenched a hint of emotion from him, so Dean figured he was owed that.

It was gone just as quickly, as Novak continued, “And definitely nothing as nice as what you’ve given us here. Didn’t really feel like packing stuff up between last night and now, and we’ve got the rest of the month before my lease runs out to sort it out.”

“Now see, that’s why I like you, Jimmy. You’re smart. Why stress, right? Right. Smart guy. Tell you what.” Junior thumped Novak on the shoulder a couple of times in what apparently passed for friendly approval among his peers. “If you’re not in a rush, go ahead and take the morning to get your boy comfortable here but get to the office after lunch. Last guy made such a fucking mess, and I want it sorted before my old man drops in to check up on things. He gets real paranoid about the books, you got no idea. I don’t see the big deal, even an audit’s just an audit. But his heart ain’t what it used to be, so.”

In the beat of silence after Junior’s sentence ended abruptly, Novak’s brow creased as he started to formulate a reply. Dean was quicker.

With a giggle that he barely recognized as coming from his own mouth, he turned Junior’s manly bonding gesture into a catty, flailing slap to Junior’s arm. “You know, I always heard they got Capone on tax evasion. If a man like that can get caught up in money stuff, I think your dad’s smart to worry about it. And you’re smart for bringing my Jimmy in. He’s real dedicated. I swear, sometimes I think he loves numbers more than he loves me!”

“Of course not, Dean,” Novak protested with admirable speed. Then he added, dryly, “Almost as much, though,” and winked. The motherfucker actually winked. It was not a smooth move. Really, he looked like he’d gotten dust in his eye and was trying to get it out without anyone noticing, but there was a dorky charm to it that made it work.

Junior passed the keys on to Novak, then Dean stood in the doorway to wave him away as he drove off. As soon as he shut the door, Novak pinned him to it with nothing but a glower from across the room—it did things to Dean, knocked him straight out of his role and into the dangerous headspace of the night before, of those eyes searing into him with his ass on fire and come cooling sticky in his pants. He could still feel the former, muted into a pleasant ache that he had so far resisted checking for bruising. Whether he wanted the bruises or not was something else he refused to give further attention to. The latter wasn’t exactly at risk of happening again, but if Novak kept looking at him like that he was going to have an embarrassing enough situation in the same place.

Luckily, Novak saved the moment by ruining it, reminding Dean that he wasn’t worth getting hot over. He was an asshole of a control freak, and Dean had done something against his unspoken plan to piss him off.

“Are you a fifties housewife now?”

Pasting a smile on his face, his tone the same honeyed bullshit he’d used on Junior, Dean said, “I thought you liked me chipper, sweetheart. Come on, don’t you wanna look around the place before we get into a domestic?”

Novak’s glare didn’t waver in the face of Dean’s sweetness; if anything, it intensified as he took half a step toward Dean, his mouth opening to say something else. Since he’d proven that letting him talk at all was a bad idea—not because the way his voice went deeper and rougher when he was mad had a direct line to Dean’s dick, not because he only ever had shitty things to say, but because he was once again in very real danger of letting his ego get Dean killed—Dean went ahead and cut him off before he could.

“I mean it, darling,” he said, trying to convey meaning with his eyebrows and a pointed emphasis on the endearment. “Let’s take some time to explore every exciting detail of this lovely house that your amazing new boss has given us.”

It took a minute, Novak’s eyes narrowing as Dean inwardly cursed their entire half-assed plan, Novak’s stubbornness, and his own lack of telepathy. Any other time he would’ve taken a certain amount of satisfaction in Novak’s cluelessness, especially after his earlier doubts that maybe Novak was going to be better at the job than he was, but that would have to wait. He saw the moment it registered for Novak, because his mouth snapped shut and his eyebrows actually went up instead of down.

Dean waited out the silence, his smile less fake but still carefully controlled to avoid looking as smug as he felt. He could play that particular game just as well as Novak.

“Of course,” Novak said like it pained him, “you’re right.”

Searching the house without looking like they were searching the house meant Dean cooing at a lot of things he really didn’t give two shits about while Novak followed him around like an indulgent husband. Awkward as all fuck, but it got the job done well enough that after an hour, Dean felt confident there were no cameras or dead bodies stashed anywhere. He was less sure about bugs, the listening device kind, so he dragged Novak—literally pulled him—back upstairs into their new bedroom. He set the radio to some overly loud mood music, started the shower, and ignored Novak's rolling eyes.

“You work a fucking wire and you weren’t even thinking about bugs, so spare me the martyr act,” Dean hissed, keeping his voice low even with the masking sounds. “I’d think you were trying to tip them off and get us I caught if I didn’t I know you’re just an asshole with a god complex who thinks he’s always the smartest guy in the room. How the fuck do you miss that?”

Leaning back against the long stone counter, Dean waited with his arms crossed for Novak to answer. Novak stood just inside the bathroom door, hands at his sides in a pose that should have looked awkward. It really should’ve, and on anyone else it probably would’ve, but Novak wasn’t fidgety about it like most people would’ve been. He was a man at ease with his own presence, so in charge of himself that it seemed only natural for him to be in charge of everything around him.

Dean wasn’t about to fall for it in the middle of pointing out Novak’s fuck up, but it was still almost tempting.

“I was careless,” Novak admitted finally. “Dangerously so. Thank you for exercising the necessary precautions and I’m sorry for having put you in that position.”

“Oh. Uh.” Expecting more of a fight, Dean was left with nothing to say. “Yeah.”

For better or worse, his input wasn’t needed.

“I don’t think the house is likely to have transmitters, but taking that for granted is a significant risk given what’s already at stake. We could also benefit from their existence, if we’re able to confirm it and determine who’s on the other end.”

“Feed them what we want them to know, you mean.” Novak nodded and Dean chewed his lip. “That’s a dangerous goddamn game.”

“This is all dangerous,” Novak pointed out, but for once it didn’t sound like he was calling Dean an idiot just by stating a fact. “I’m not suggesting we treat it like a game, but if we find an opportunity to speed up the process of collecting evidence we should take it. The faster we build this case, the less likely it is to get us killed.”

“I wasn’t sure you cared about that. After last night,” he added, thinking of Novak’s dismissive attitude toward Dean not wanting to go into the bar completely blind.

Novak’s expression shuttered into something too complicated for Dean to read. “I wasn’t at my best last night,” he said.

And what the fuck that was supposed to mean, Dean had no clue. Except that it probably wasn’t any of the things his mind immediately went to. Because if that hadn’t been Novak at his best—well. Fuck. That was going on Dean’s list of things not to think about.

As if sensing Dean’s need to move on, Novak shifted almost imperceptibly and said, “In any case, it’s premature to plan for that when all we have is speculation. While I’m out with Junior this afternoon, would you be able to continue looking without being obvious? I can provide some guidance about what to look for if you would find that useful, and can check anything when I get back.”

“Of course I can. I think the real question is: Would you trust me to do it right, or would you go right back through and search it yourself anyway because you think I don’t know my head from my ass? Because I can think of funner ways to kill time if it’s going to be pointless.”

Novak’s head tilted to the side and then he stepped in close. Closer than he needed to be in the spacious bathroom, closer than normal expectations for personal space allowed, closer than he’d been since Dean stood up off his lap. The intensity of his bright-eyed stare was also somewhere around that level. It took digging his fingers into his own ribs, hidden beneath the shield of his bicep, for Dean to keep himself from revealing the shiver that wanted to shake out from his spine and all through his body.

“Dean.”

“Novak.”

Novak frowned, just a small crease in his forehead and a turn at the corners of his mouth, but it managed to make Dean feel like he’d punched Novak and himself in the stomach at the same time.

Dean licked his lips, saw Novak’s eyes register the movement, tried, “Castiel.”

The frown eased. “I do trust you. I was concerned before, yes, but you’ve proven—you’ve gone beyond the call of duty to show that you’re trustworthy. You’ve put yourself in danger and kept me safe when I was unable to. Twice now. So yes, Dean. I trust you to do it right, whether the ‘it’ in question is securing the house or playing it up at Junior or getting us both out of here alive. I trust you. Period.”

“Okay,” Dean said. “Right. Good. You should, uh. You get to work and I’ll do that.”

He fled the bathroom; there was no way even he could lie to himself that it was anything else. He just needed some space, some time to try and get his fucking head on right. Not needing or wanting to wait for Castiel’s instructions, he got to work ‘tidying’ around the house and called a chipper goodbye from a distance when it was time for Castiel to leave.

One lamp got broken in the process. Not because he thought it had anything in it, which it didn’t; he just needed to break something.


	7. Chapter 7

The next morning, Dean startled awake to an unfamiliar alarm and found himself in an unfamiliar bed. The pillow his face was half smashed into was too fluffy, the blanket tangled around his bare legs was too soft and smooth, and the mattress, in addition to feeling like a welcoming cloud and not the pile of dead pigeons covered in a sheet that Dean usually slept on, had too many people on it. One person too many, to be specific, since he didn’t remember going home with anyone the night before. Especially not anyone who woke up to… was that NPR?

The other occupant of the bed—the owner, presumably—clicked off the radio and said, “Good morning, sweetheart.”

That dragged up the memory of the same voice, of Castiel calling him that in the moments after he spanked Dean to one of the most intense orgasms of his life. He couldn’t call it the best not under the circumstances, but there was potential there that made it seem an awful lot like it could have been. Along with that memory came all the rest, so that resolved some of his confusion but also left him with new questions.

Starting with: “There’s no fucking way you carried me up those stairs.” So not technically a question, but it still demanded an answer.

Castiel laughed softly before providing one. “No. You woke up enough to carry yourself. You don’t remember?”

“No.” Dean rolled onto his side to fix Castiel with a look that stopped his smile short. The part of Dean that kept having stupid thoughts stupidly thought it was a shame; Castiel hard and scowling may have been the living embodiment of Dean’s sexual ideal, but Castiel soft and smiling gave Dean a whole different set of feelings that were no less of a bad idea. Whether or not his regret was a sign of weakness, it wasn’t more important than the point he had to make, and that was definitely going to kill any good mood Castiel might have had.

“I don’t remember you coming home, either,” he said.

A furrowed brow was a much more familiar look on Castiel. “Junior wanted to take me to his other favorite bar after work. It was late. I wasn’t expecting you to wait up for me.”

“Jimmy, baby.” Playing to his cover made it easy to layer vinegar and honey on the words in equal measure. “We just moved to a new place. I don’t know where anything is, I can’t call you at the office because I don’t know that number either, I don’t even know any of the neighbors! If something happens, I need to know where you are.”

He could see the moment Castiel got it through the sweetheart code, when his eyes widened and mouth dropped open half an inch. Pink around the edges and dark promise inside, it was too distracting even in the periphery of Dean’s vision as he kept his eyes fixed on Castiel’s. Fortunately, Castiel closed it before Dean could do more than realize he was having to fight the urge to lick his own suddenly dry lips.

“Nothing’s going to happen, Dean,” he said at last, condescending, but he was playing a role, too. He reached out, rested his hand on Dean’s shoulder, and squeezed it four times. Ten-four. Message received. Hopefully he understood the full extent of what he had done, because without knowing what was going on Dean had been left sitting up on the couch, wondering if his partner had been made by the mob and if a goon or two were on the way to deal with him, too.

That wasn’t going to happen again. He had to know he could trust Castiel to remember they were both on the line, or if it happened again he’d have to run. And if that burned Castiel, he’d only have himself to blame.

“I’ll get you that number,” Castiel added, his hand still warm and firm against Dean’s arm, not pulling away even after he’d made his point. “But I don’t want you to worry. Remember why we decided I needed to take this job? So that I could look after you, make sure you’re taken care of. Junior’s gonna give me everything I need to do that, as long as I do right by him. So don’t worry, all right?”

“All right.”

They lay there a moment longer; if Dean had been planning to say anything else, he’d forgotten it somewhere along the way, and Castiel was just staring at him like his life depended on Dean trusting him. Which, admittedly, it probably did. Both their lives, both of them trusting each other. It was like falling, that realization: He was putting his entire life in Castiel’s hands with every second he decided to stay in their charade, and he was still doing it.

He’d never been one to trust easily, wouldn’t have believed he could give up that even that amount responsibility for his own safety. Not to anyone, not since he’d been a kid and his parents had been his whole world. Then they’d had Sam, and he loved his brother but he’d never be able to sit back and let Sam be in charge of anything dangerous, either. Hell, Sam was more for him to worry about, not less, the little brother he’d always looked out for. But Castiel asked for Dean’s faith, and Dean—Dean gave it.

It was too much, too intense in that already intimate setting. Their relationship may have been more fake than anything Dean had ever lied about before in his life, but it didn’t feel it when Castiel was still holding him and looking at him like he mattered, and that was just as dangerous as anything else about their time undercover in the middle of Styne territory. If Castiel was going to take point on dealing with Junior, then the least Dean could do was keep his creeping feelings in check.

Unable to bear it any longer, Dean cut his eyes away to the clock radio, which was still spouting a reassuring pair of male and female voices talking through the news of the morning. “The house is clean. You’re up early for staying out all night. Heading in to the office already?”

He had no reason to want to interpret Castiel’s frown. Possibly some of it had to do with the way he’d just thrown that incredibly important piece of information out there after making Castiel play the game of choosing his words so carefully, but true to his promise, he didn’t question it.

“Thank you. And yes, I’ll be going in shortly. Junior really doesn’t want his father to see how bad he let things get and I’m hoping that lack of care includes flagrant documentation of criminal activity. Can you go to our actual homes today and collect enough clothing and, uh, interesting personal items to make it look like we really live here?”

“Okay,” Dean said slowly, “and should I call a cab or just skip the middleman and give one of Junior’s goons our addresses to blow our cover directly?”

Castiel’s face went through a range of expressions, from creasing forehead to widening eyes to, finally and too sweetly, a sheepish smile. “I’m sorry, I forgot to mention. Junior gave me a car and he’ll be very insulted if I don’t drive it to work. So you can take mine, and I’ll give you my house key as well.”

“He gave you a car?” Dean repeated, then blew out a breath that could’ve been a sigh or a laugh; he wasn’t sure himself. “I guess he already gave you a house. Okay. I can do that. Be careful today, yeah?”

“You as well, Dean.”

The intolerable intimacy was back, so Dean threw back the covers and started getting ready for his day. He and Castiel left together, exchanging a quick hug for show as they split to the separate cars. He was glad Castiel hadn’t gone in for a kiss, particularly because a small part of him wished he had. Having a purpose for the day was a good thing, too, because he hadn’t just spent the last night fixated on his worries.

He’d also been pretty caught up in the memory of Castiel beating his ass so hard Dean came all over his lap. And even worse, wondering about what else Castiel might’ve been up for if they’d met under other circumstances. It was distracting to say the least, and also baffling because—well, Castiel. He was a grumpy, obnoxious, paranoid dick. Nothing about him screamed “toppiest top ever to top.” But put him in leather and fuck if that wasn’t exactly what he was. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the grumpy paranoid dick was giving way to a considerate and thoughtful partner who treated Dean like an equal. Like a good cop.

So yeah, he needed something else to focus on for a while.

Running through his own apartment was easy enough. He knew where everything was, had spent the drive over considering what best fit his little gay housewife persona best. Zep t-shirts were out, the light brown sweater-vest Sam had given him by convincing a poor gullible five-year-old that Uncle Dean would love it was in. Khakis, white and light blue button-ups, a few books on child development he still had lying around from when Judy had been born and he’d wanted to make sure she didn’t turn out as big a nerd as Sam.

Going through Castiel’s house, on the other hand, was an adventure in surrealism and self-discipline. If he’d had the time and distance from the situation, poking around Castiel’s stuff would’ve been a dream come true. Hell, two days ago when he was planning how to take the man down and fight his way into good standing with the wire unit, Dean might’ve paid actual money for the opportunity. As it was, he was too sure that anything out of the ordinary he found would make him more interested in Castiel, not less, and he didn’t need to risk that.

In a moment of inspiration, after haphazardly throwing together half the contents of Castiel’s closet and drawers and shoving them into the back seat of the car next to his own, Dean went back inside and carefully carried out one of the dollhouses on display in Castiel’s living room. It would make a good conversation piece for Dean’s pretend job, but also… He just liked it. He liked how it looked and the obvious care that had gone into its making, could picture any one of the dozens of tiny pieces of furniture he’d seen Castiel working on going inside to create a lovely little home.

Maybe it would bring them luck, having a pretend home they cared about inside the pretend home that might get them killed.

Organizing the clothes and decorations back at the house barely took him an hour, which left him with at least two more hours until Castiel got back with any news from his first day on the job. Since he was already in a domestic mood, the kitchen was completely empty, and he liked eating most of the time, he headed back out for the grocery store he’d seen near the entrance to the neighborhood. Might as well fill the fridge and pantry, and make dinner while he was at it. They had to eat, and Castiel was doing the hard work; it was really the least Dean could contribute.

Halfway down the dairy aisle he spotted Junior. Just his fucking luck. And even more his luck, Junior spotted him back before he could pull his wobbly-wheeled cart into a u-turn. “Dean! Not that I mind running into you, because damn you do look good today, but Jimmy said you’d be working.”

Dean smoothed the front of his shirt and smiled vapidly. “Oh, I was but it was just a half day today. Since I had the time free, I wanted to make sure I had a nice dinner ready for Jimmy when he gets done. He’s so excited to be working for you, I know he must be really making sure he’s doing the best job. And that kind of dedication should be rewarded, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, definitely. He’s been doing real good today, I knew he was a smart one. And you know, you’re right. I oughta show him how I appreciate it. Tell you what, pretty boy. I’m gonna head back to the office and tell Jimmy he can take the rest of the day off to get home and take care of you. But you still make that nice dinner you were planning, after he’s done doing that, and I’ll bring over a couple buddies so we can throw you a proper housewarming. How’s that sound?”

It sounded like a fucking nightmare.

“That sounds like such fun! You really are being so good to us, Junior. It means the world to me, and to Jimmy too.”

Dean finished his shopping in a distracted daze, more focused on planning for everything that could go wrong and what he and Castiel would need to go over than on what he was adding to his cart. At the last minute, he swerved away from the line of cashiers to swing through the pharmacy section and stock up on first aid and related supplies. At least he’d had enough warning to prepare for the worst. He paid with the hundred dollar bills Junior had given him to cover the costs.

“I know old Jimmy likes to keep you on a short leash, if you know what I mean,” Junior had said with a wink.

And Junior must’ve meant it when he said he was going right back to the office, because Dean had only just finished putting everything away, then pulling out the ingredients he needed for dinner—soup, steak, potatoes; simple and classic—when Castiel got back.

“We have a problem,” Castiel said as he rounded the corner into the kitchen.

“I know.”

“No, Dean. We have a serious problem. Junior introduced me to the friends he’s bringing over, and—Dean. Deputy Commissioner Adler will be here in twenty minutes.”

“Fuck.” Dean dropped the knife and potato onto the counter and spun to face Castiel. “Did he recognize you?”

Castiel shook his head. “I recognized him even before he gave his name, but I’ve been in the basement for years and never run into him professionally. But he’s going to know who you are.”

“Adler. Fuck! I knew he was dirty, but this?”

“I suspected,” Castiel admitted, grimacing. “Never had any proof until now, but when he sent you down to us, I thought… I thought you were a plant.”

“Couldn’t have fucking mentioned before now?” It was barely a real complaint, though; Dean understood, and more than that he had bigger fucking problems to deal with. “Do we have time to get the fuck out of here and pray Junior never sees us on the street?”

Looking like it pained him, Castiel shook his head. “I don’t think so. Even if we did, there’s no chance he and Adler wouldn’t talk it over and figure out what happened. We’d be dead anyway.”

“Even if we can get Adler on corruption and, I don’t know, RICO shit?”

Car doors slamming outside made the decision for them. They were out of time.

“Fuck, they’re early. You go out the back, I’ll try to delay and—”

“And get yourself killed, then me too when they see me through a window? Not happening. Okay. Here’s what we’re gonna do. You’re gonna go play host. I’m gonna stay in here and play busy housewife. Don’t eat the soup.”

Castiel stared at him like he’d grown two extra heads and started using them to headbutt himself in the first, most idiotic head. “What?”

Dean pulled out the bottle of sleeping pills he’d picked up as an emergency option at the store. “Dont,” he repeated, “eat the soup.”

It was a stupid fucking plan. Of all the stupid fucking plans that had been a part of the overall stupid fucking plan that led them into the mess they were in, it had to be the very fucking stupidest plan of all.

And just like all the rest of their stupid fucking plans, because Dean had been looking at his luck the wrong way the whole time, it worked. Junior and Adler and whoever the fuck the last guy was were happy to sit around the table with Castiel, talking shit and drinking and slurping down soup while they waited for “Little Mrs. Novak” to get the rest of their meal ready. Between the amount they were drinking and the amount of pills Dean had dissolved into their soup, he wasn’t entirely sure they weren’t in the process of murdering their dinner guests, but—

If someone had to die, it wasn’t going to be them.

The first clattering thud came only a few minutes in, and silence followed it for a good two seconds before Junior slurred, “Issit a heart-ttack?” Then he must’ve gone face-down in his bowl, too, because a second and third crash followed.

“Dean!” Castiel yelled. “They’re out, get in here!”

They didn’t talk as they disarmed the men, dividing the work in silent understanding. Dean patted Adler down with ruthless satisfaction, not surprised to find that all he had was the department-issued pistol in his hip holster, and he relieved the piece of shit of his badge while he was at it. Only when all three had been searched and secured with belts and ties—Adler’s tighter than the rest because Dean was feeling righteously spiteful—did they even look at each other.

“Fuck,” Castiel said.

“Fuck,” Dean agreed.

“We need to contact Singer.”

“Need to get the fuck out of here, too.”

Castiel frowned, looked around, and frowned more. “You get to a safe phone and make the call. I’ll keep them in custody and start collecting evidence.”

“Are you insane? I’m not leaving you alone when they wake up or someone comes looking for them. We’re both leaving.”

“If they get away, if Adler gets away before he’s properly arrested, the whole case against him—”

“To hell with the case!” Castiel scowled harder, opened his mouth to argue, but Dean rolled right over him. “We’re not dying for this fucking case. You are not dying for this, you got it? So I’m going to go use the neighbor’s phone and make an awkward coded phone call and when I get back, you will be ready to leave.”

He didn’t leave any space for Castiel to respond; if it was an agreement he didn’t need to hear it, and anything else would have been a waste of both their times. Dean just told him what would be happening and then walked out of the room, out of the house, across the street and one house over. As far as he’d been able to tell, the older man who lived there had very little going on and even less love for Junior.

And since he hadn’t been killed or even worked over yet for pissing on Junior’s lawn twice a night, it didn’t seem like he was on the Styne’s radar.

The man took long enough getting to the door that Dean was about to cut his losses and try the next house down, but the thump of a cane approaching kept him on the porch until the door opened and a very old, very grumpy man frowned suspiciously at him. “What?”

With his best smile, or at least the best one he could muster at the moment, Dean said, “Hey there, neighbor! We just moved here, I’m Dean Smith, and I’m so sorry for introducing myself like this, but we’re having a bit of phone trouble and I was hoping I could use yours?”

His gaze slid noticeably away from Dean to the multiple cars parked in front of Dean’s house. It didn’t return; he just grunted and turned away, pulling the door open wider for Dean to follow him. “Phone’s under the stairs to your left. Don’t call long distance. Close the door on your way out.” Then he thumped off past the stairs and dropped into his armchair with a groan, attention already back on whatever was on television.

Dean wasn’t always the most patient guy, and just then it seemed especially like everyone was going out of their way to make things take too long for him to be happy. The phone rang three times before it was picked up.

“Yeah?”

“Hey, Benny! We’re having some problems with the oven again, and in the middle of my dinner party. My boss is even there, you know, Mr. Adler? It’s so embarrassing.”

“Shit! Are you okay, brother?”

“We’ve done everything we could, but Jimmy and I can’t fix it ourselves. Will you send someone out?”

“Yeah. We’re on it. Adler? Shit. Okay, I know a guy with the feds, time to give him call. You stay safe until we get there.”

“You’re the best.” Dean’s cheery tone was fake, but the sentiment wasn’t; he hoped Lafitte knew that. “See you soon!”

The old grump didn’t even wave back when Dean thanked him.

Back at the house, Castiel was waiting where Dean had left him. But he had a stack of notebooks in one hand and his dollhouse in the other, which was all the proof Dean needed that he was done being a fucking moron. Junior, Adler, and the other asshole were still out. He should’ve told Lafitte to send medics, too, but he hadn’t been sure how to word it and honestly none of them were worth the time of figuring it out.

“They’re on it,” he said before Castiel could ask. “Ready?”

They took Castiel’s car. Who knew what the fuck kind of tracking and other bullshit was in the one Junior had given them, and if there was a chance they’d run into whatever cavalry Lafitte was calling in, better to be in their own recognizable car.

“Station,” Castiel ordered.

Dean rolled his eyes and kept driving. “No shit. It’s gonna be a long fucking night and it ain’t gonna be over after that, either. Lafitte’s calling in the FBI.”

Castiel considered that as Dean took the turns out of their neighborhood at double the posted limit. “We’ll probably need to leave Chicago,” he said at last. “This might be enough to bring down the Stynes, maybe Adler will turn and give them other connections, but none of it’s going to happen before every mobster in Chicago finds out who we are and nothing’s going to get all of them out of the game. Someone’s going to make an example of us, they’ll have to.”

They’d made it far enough with no sign of anyone around that Dean figured he could stop at the red light. It gave him a chance to look over at Castiel, who had his little wooden house in his lap and profound thoughtfulness on his face. The smart thing to do would’ve been to get witness protection from the feds. Leave the job, leave their family and friends, never see each other again except to testify.

Fuck the smart thing.

“I got a brother in New York who’s always after me to move out that way.”

Castiel turned to look at him, and maybe it was just the light but he looked a little lost.

“I figure the NYPD can always use a couple more good cops. Yeah?”

A small smile pushed through the gloom, growing until it reached the expression Dean had come to recognize as Castiel’s happiness. “Yes, Dean. I think they can.”

The light turned green and distant sirens broke through the silence if the evening. Dean and Castiel drove on; toward their unit, their work, their future.


End file.
